The replicability of findings in experimental psychology can be improved by distinguishing sharply between hypothesis-generating research and hypothesis-testing research. This distinction can be achieved by preregistration, a method that has recently attracted widespread attention. Although preregistration is fair in the sense that it inoculates researchers against hindsight bias and confirmation bias, preregistration does not allow researchers to analyze the data flexibly without the analysis being demoted to exploratory. To alleviate this concern we discuss how researchers may conduct blinded analyses. As (...) with preregistration, blinded analyses break the feedback loop between the analysis plan and analysis outcome, thereby preventing cherry-picking and significance seeking. However, blinded analyses retain the flexibility to account for unexpected peculiarities in the data. We discuss different methods of blinding, offer recommendations for blinding of popular experimental designs, and introduce the design for an online blinding protocol. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mensonge MélodramatiqueTriangular Desire in Sense and SensibilityMatthew Taylor (bio)The Passions are perfectly unknown to her; she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy Sisterhood; even to the Feelings she vouchsafes no more than an occasional graceful but distant recognition; too frequent converse with them would ruffle the smooth elegance of her progress. Her business is not half so much with the human heart as with the human eyes, (...) mouth, hands and feet; what sees keenly, speaks aptly, moves flexibly, it suits her to study, but what throbs fast and full, though hidden, what the blood rushes through, what is the unseen seat of Life and the sentient target of Death—this Miss Austen ignores.—Charlotte Brontë1"Oh! mama, how spiritless, how tame was Edward's manner in reading to us last night! I felt for my sister most severely. Yet she bore it with so much composure, she seemed scarcely to notice it. I could hardly keep my seat. To hear those beautiful lines which have frequently almost driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such dreadful indifference!" [End Page 189]—Marianne in Sense and Sensibility2Charlotte Brontë had probably not read Sense and Sensibility (SS) before making her famous indictment of Jane Austen above, otherwise she would have found herself prophetically, and mercilessly, parodied through the character of Marianne Dashwood.3 Marianne's critique of Edward above matches Brontë's denunciation with uncanny precision. Marianne, the "stormy sister" of the novel, carries on in the same vein through most of it. What she proclaims as passionate sensibility comes off instead as, at varying times, snooty, self-indulgent, exhibitionist, and histrionic. Marianne even assumes the role of Brontë's "sentient target of Death" not long after she is cruelly jilted by Willoughby, when she wanders listlessly outdoors in the damp. It is not unlike Jane Eyre's numb wanderings when she flees Thornfield and Rochester. This "acting out" by Marianne comes close to killing her.Marianne's romantic "sensibility" contrasts with her sister Elinor's "sense." Yet, of course, readers of SS will come to know that Elinor can feel just as deeply and passionately as Marianne; she just has to conceal it. Elinor can suffer as much, too, only without the luxury of wearing it on dew-drenched sleeves. Thus, we have the thematic frame of the novel, suggested in the title. As Austen's first published novel, SS is brilliant, mature, and confident. One weakness seems to be a Brontëan one, the melodramatic coincidence in the plot that connects Colonel Brandon's secret life of compassion to Willoughby's secret sins. Otherwise, SS sits very well alongside Austen's other five masterpieces.4From the perspective of René Girard's mimetic theory, mimesis comes out with a bang in SS.5 Not only is Marianne a principal character in Austen's first canonical novel, but her romantic sensibility is thematized in the title.6 "Sensibility" for Marianne is feeling, unmediated desire expressed in unrestrained language and impulsive action. Yet Marianne's actions are anything but unmediated, and they are compulsive rather than impulsive. Even when she finally overcomes the worst symptoms under the influence of Elinor, and even though we do develop genuine sympathy for her, Marianne never comes to any deep self-knowledge. Marianne perfectly encapsulates Girard's mensonge romantique, or "romantic lie."Implying that Marianne is a liar is not a comfortable stance, and not just because we may be fond of her, but because she is open and sincere—to a fault. Yet just because Marianne is honest about her feelings, it does not follow that she is accurate about them. In fact, this is often a problem in interpreting Marianne: Her self-characterization is accepted uncritically.7 From that basis, she is framed, somewhat understandably, as representing one side of a moral debate about sensibility.8 Austen is seen as being for it, or against it, or working out some sort of accommodation. Austen is further assessed as having done [End Page 190] so well, or badly, or indifferently, as the case may be. Then Austen is seen as conforming to cultural standards, or challenging... (shrink)

At the earliest break of ancient hominins from their primate relatives in vocal communication, we propose a selection pressure on vocal fitness signaling by hominin infants. Exploratory vocalizations, not tied to expression of distress or immediate need, could have helped persuade parents of the wellness and viability of the infants who produced them. We hypothesize that hominin parents invested more in infants who produced such signals of fitness plentifully, neglecting or abandoning them less often than infants who produced the sounds (...) less frequently. Selection for such exploratory vocalization provided a critically important inclination and capability relevant to language, we reason, because the system that encouraged spontaneous vocalization also made vocalization functionally flexible to an extent that has not been observed in any other animal. Although this vocal flexibility did not by itself create language, it provided an essential foundation upon which language would evolve through a variety of additional steps. In evaluating this speculation, we consider presumable barriers to evolving language that are thought to be implications of Darwinian Theory. It has been claimed that communication always involves sender self-interest and that self-interest leads to deceit, which is countered through clever detection by receivers. The constant battle of senders and receivers has been thought to pose an insuperable challenge to honest communication, which has been viewed as a requirement of language. To make communication honest, it has been proposed that stable signaling requires costly handicaps for the sender, and since language cannot entail high cost, the reasoning has suggested an insurmountable obstacle to the evolution of language. We think this presumed honesty barrier is an illusion that can be revealed by recognition of the fact that language is not inherently honest and in light of the distinction between illocutionary force and semantics. Our paper also considers barriers to the evolution of language (not having to do with honesty) that we think may have actually played important roles in preventing species other than humans from evolving language. (shrink)

One of the important modernist terms – flexibility – offers the introduction of time and of the unknown as parameters in design. Yet the development of flexibility in modern architecture shows also the ambivalent relationship between architecture and the user – the objective of incorporating flexibility in archi-tecture. The span between introducing the freedom of choice and expression and the reality of totally controlled spaces and movements shows the range of interpretations of this subject. By looking at the strategies and (...) evolution of flexibility in architecture one can project possible problems and frictions for the new discipline – ubiquitous computing. Both flexible architecture and the ubiquitous house are devoted to space, time and technology, and intend to give the user the maximum of possibilities inside the house. What are the mistakes that some of the development in flexible architecture has made, that ubiquitous computing might learn from, especially in its relation to the user? (shrink)

Flexibility is a desired characteristic that people must have to adjust to inevitable processes of economic, cultural, and political globalization. Engineering education reform is often used as a justification for changes in curricula, delivery modes, and problem solving that should lead to curriculum integration, modular pedagogies, and systemic reform. Some educators have incorporated the concept in their programs and courses in a variety of ways whereas others have resisted changes to this day. Yet a detailed analysis of the meanings of (...) flexibility, its origins and different forms, along with its challenges and opportunities for engineering education, remains to be done. This article surveys the historical origins of flexibility, identifies different forms of flexibility in engineering education, outlines existing challenges to flexibility-drive educational reform, and provides alternative views to the existing interpretation of flexibility in engineering education. (shrink)

Do these lyrics ring true to you? When truth rings, when it oscillates, it reverberates in one’s soul and imagination. These lyrics confer a feeling of sincerity that does not translate without a certain context: the rhythm, rawness, and rhyme open the ear of the listener to retrieve this depiction of an almost unimaginable world expressed from an equally difficult-to-imagine perspective. For some, while the veracity of this description is beyond the pale of their reality, the significance, the proverbial weight (...) of these lyrics, resonates in a different register of truth that follows from a sense of their honesty.Yet, for other listeners these lyrics cannot be heard in this register. They instead must be a literal... (shrink)

In Roger Pielke Jr.’s The Honest Broker (2007) he discusses different roles a scientist can adopt when giving advice to policymakers. The honest broker role focuses on clarifying and expanding the scope of choice for others. This role has the virtues of being sensitive to known problems with experts being partisan by stealth, dominating policy decisions by controlling knowledge input, and reducing the scope of considerations deemed relevant to decision-making. Yet I argue that to the extent the (...) class='Hi'>honest broker role involves expanding the scope of choice, an array of problems arises. These include ambiguity about which and whose consensus ought to guide scientists in their decisions about what role to adopt, an implicit tendency to insulate politics from science, and a possible replication of the anti-pluralism of political populism. Drawing upon Phillip Pettit’s critique of Isaiah Berlin’s account of freedom as non-interference, I argue that the honest broker role for scientists inherits the problems afflicting accounts of freedom as the non-restriction of options: namely, the problems of adaptive preference formation and ingratiation. On this basis I suggest not advising scientists to be honest brokers, because doing so might fail to help them be reflexive scientists. (shrink)

In today's business world, ethics is not simply a peripheral concern of executive boards or a set of supposed constraints on free enterprise. Ethics stands at the very core of our working lives and of society as a whole, defining the public image of the business community and the ways in which individual companies and people behave. What people do at work--and how they think about work--determines their attitudes and aspirations, affecting and even structuring their personal lives and habits. Working (...) from this premise, Honest Work: A Business Ethics Reader provides a practical overview of business ethics that concentrates on the ethical problems and dilemmas students are most likely to face in their prospective work environments. Classic and recent articles and cases cover a broad spectrum of issues and concerns--from private ethical dilemmas to larger considerations of corporate values--and propose guidelines for thinking about the business world in a moral context. Each reading and case is followed by lively questions for discussion. Offering a welcome alternative to the impersonal tone of most business ethics texts, the editors address students in an appealing and conversational manner. They provide engaging chapter introductions that include personal narratives and also present the ideas of great philosophers in a unique way--as emails. Ideal for introductory undergraduate and MBA courses in business ethics, Honest Work: A Business Ethics Reader can be read as a coherent narrative but also offers instructors great flexibility, as its various chapters, readings, and cases can be pursued in almost any order. A Companion Website featuring chapter objectives and summaries, study questions, self-tests, and off-site links of interest will soon be available. An Instructor's Manual with Test Bank is available to adopters. (shrink)

Kant understands human dignity (Würde) as the dignity of a person. His definitions imply that if a human being has dignity, then she is a person and vice versa. Yet he also defines personality in juridical terms: a person is someone to whom actions can be imputed. Since any obligation presupposes imputability, personality is a condition of both ethical and juridical lawgiving. I maintain that asserting oneself as a person in relation to others implies taking legal responsibility for one’s free (...) actions and not pretending that these were determined by other circumstances. My main point is that honeste vive presupposes moral personality, which is then given juridical form. Moral personality as the freedom of morally practical reason is what ties the two parts of The Metaphysics of Morals together. This shows that honeste vive requires that moral personality be translated into legal responsibility in our relations with others. (shrink)

Ceteris Paribus clauses in reasoning are used to allow for defeaters of norms, rules or laws, such as in von Wright’s example “I prefer my raincoat over my umbrella, everything else being equal”. In earlier work, a logical analysis is offered in which sets of formulas Γ, embedded in modal operators, provide necessary and sufficient conditions for things to be equal in ceteris paribus clauses. For most laws, the set of things allowed to vary is small, often finite, and so (...) Γ is typically infinite. Yet the axiomatisation they provide is restricted to the special and atypical case in which Γ is finite. We address this problem by being more flexible about ceteris paribus conditions, in two ways. The first is to offer an alternative, slightly more general semantics, in which the set of formulas only give necessary but not sufficient conditions. This permits a simple axiomatisation. (shrink)

The evolution of a relevant nosological concept reflects changes in the distinction between what is recognized and defined as normal and pathologic. Attention is directed to the rationale and value of detecting subclinical aging-related modifications in cognitive performance. The position that different kinds of dementias may have precedents in etiological-specific kinds of early or mild cognitive impairments (MCI) supports targeting people earlier for study of these subclinical symptoms. Because heterogeneous disorders can be expected to have multiple patterns of cognitive and (...) behavioral changes, useful conceptual nosologies should be flexible. Yet clinical research primarily restricts its focus to a single pathway where MCI leads to Alzheimer's disease (AD), and uses selective recruitment, washout screenings, repeated trialing of similar compounds, and other methods that bank the published evidence in favor of the existing therapies and their modest efficacy. This focus on AD recursively colors MCI, not as a flexible "human kind" in need of more careful research, but like AD, as an essential "natural kind." Early determination of MCI targets a potential pharmaceutical market of a quarter to a half of the population over sixty-five and the individual experiencing cognitive decline in its early stages is aware and sensitive to their surroundings, to a linked sociodegeneration with neurodegeneration. This paper examines how classifying people changes both the classifier and the subject of classification. The potential for conflict of interest is raised regarding what new causal knowledge and techniques for ascertainment are selected. Reading evidence from epidemiology, neurology, and clinical studies through science studies and bioethics lenses, we explore the possibility of a pluralistic model of cognitive impairment nosology where biological/pathologic processes respond and interrelate with a normal healthy state. (shrink)

Attention is often dichotomized into controlled vs. automatic processing, where controlled processing is slow, flexible, and intentional, and automatic processing is fast, inflexible, and unintentional. In contrast to this strict dichotomy, there is mounting evidence for context-specific processes that are engaged rapidly yet are also flexible. In the present study we extend this idea to the domain of implicit learning to examine whether flexibility in automatic processes can be implemented through the reliance on contextual features. Across three experiments (...) we show that participants can learn implicitly two complementary sequences that are associated with distinct contexts, and that transfer of learning when the two contexts are randomly intermixed depends on the distinctiveness of the two contexts. Our results point to the role of context-specific processes in the acquisition and expression of implicit sequence knowledge, and also suggest that episodic details can be represented in sequence knowledge. (shrink)

John Locke's educational program has long been considered to have two primary aims: to habituate children to reason and to raise children capable of meeting the demands of citizenship that he details in his Two Treatises of Government. Yet Locke's educational prescriptions undermine citizens’ capacity for honesty, a critical political virtue for Locke. To explain how Locke's educational prescriptions are self-undermining, we turn to Rousseau's extended critique of Locke's Some Thoughts on Education in his Émile. We argue that Rousseau explains (...) why such an education allows a natural desire to dominate to flourish, rendering children who receive it dishonest and incapable of self-government. Rousseau's critique exposes how a liberal education focused solely on autonomy cannot produce the kinds of citizens a Lockean politics requires. (shrink)

Gregory Landini offers a new and an illuminating reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s idea about his own innovation: it is the invention of a notation that removes the mystery from all theorems of logic and of mathematics as it renders their proofs part of their wordings. This makes all theorems in principle as boring as “all four-legged animals are animals.” This idea is Wittgenstein’s doctrine of showing. It is worthless; yet, as Landini shows, every time Wittgenstein offered an elaboration on it, (...) Russell checked it carefully and found it of no value. This, let me add, shows that Russell was in error in suggesting that intellectually there is no “advantage of theft over honest toil”: at times one may pay back and with high interest. Other cases may be due to misjudgment rather than to sloth. (shrink)

The preceding five years have brought remarkable advances in our understanding of the primary structure of drug receptors. The roles of certain amino acid residues in binding drugs and effecting receptor function have been proposed. As even more detailed structures become available, the goal of rational design of drug molecules based on predicted fits between the drug and its receptor will be near at hand. Although none of the classical receptors has yet yielded to X‐ray crystallographic analysis, the methods of (...) molecular biology facilitate the production of the large amounts of these rare proteins necessary for crystallization. Receptor proteins share one fundamental characteristic with allosterically regulated enzymes. Both have the structural flexibility that allows information to be transmitted to distant parts of the molecule. We will discuss recent observations about receptor structure and the dynamic nature of drug receptors, and pose questions about the significance of receptor dynamics for drug design. (shrink)

The attitude toward mathematics is shaped by cognitive components such as beliefs and cognitive processes. However, the importance of cognitive processes in attitude toward mathematics has not yet been researched. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the role of cognitive processes, creativity and cognitive flexibility, in the attitude toward mathematics of future teachers. For that purpose, 218 University students and preservice teachers, completed assignments on creativity and cognitive flexibility and a questionnaire on attitude toward mathematics. The results showed that the (...) use of innovative details (a creativity subscale) rises the probability of exhibiting a positive attitude toward mathematics by 1.81. Besides, cognitive flexibility rises this probability by 2.32. The conclusion is that both, details and cognitive flexibility act as good predictors of a positive attitude toward mathematics. This has implications for educational practice in the planning of mathematics instruction in higher education, specifically, in future teachers. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being developed for use in medicine, including for diagnosis and in treatment decision making. The use of AI in medical treatment raises many ethical issues that are yet to be explored in depth by bioethicists. In this paper, I focus specifically on the relationship between the ethical ideal of shared decision making and AI systems that generate treatment recommendations, using the example of IBM’s Watson for Oncology. I argue that use of this type of system (...) creates both important risks and significant opportunities for promoting shared decision making. If value judgements are fixed and covert in AI systems, then we risk a shift back to more paternalistic medical care. However, if designed and used in an ethically informed way, AI could offer a potentially powerful way of supporting shared decision making. It could be used to incorporate explicit value reflection, promoting patient autonomy. In the context of medical treatment, we need value-flexible AI that can both respond to the values and treatment goals of individual patients and support clinicians to engage in shared decision making. (shrink)

In recent years, researchers have tried to unpack the meaning of the term flexibility and test how different constructs of flexibility are associated with various psychopathologies. For example, it is apparent that high levels of flexibility allow individuals to adaptively cope and avoid psychopathology following traumatic events, but the precise nature of this flexibility is ambiguous. In this study we focus on two central constructs: cognitive flexibility – the ability to recognize and implement possible responses to a situation– and regulatory (...) flexibility – the ability to modulate emotional expression and experience across situations. We aim to explore the connection between cognitive and regulatory flexibility and evaluate their relative effect on PTSD symptoms. Trauma-exposed college students were assessed for cognitive and regulatory flexibility and current and lifetime PTSD symptoms. We predicted and found a relatively weak, yet significant, overlap between participants’ cognitive and regulatory flexibility. Importantly, while both cognitive and regulatory flexibility were associated with lifetime PTSD symptoms, only cognitive flexibility was associated with current PTSD symptoms. The findings illuminate the possible value of differentiating between constructs of flexibility in predicting short and long-term effects of traumatic exposure and may pave the ground for developing personalized intervention methods. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Are We There Yet?A Narrative of Firsthand Interpreter Experiences in the Medical Field and Insights to Aid Language Access ComplianceHilda Sanchez-HerreraMy Spanish interpreting journey began in 2008. In those days, very little training was available, and online studies were very new and rare. Early trainings involved out-of-town interpreter and translation conferences, reading the recently released Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) standards documents, and participating in the diversity events (...) at the hospital and in the community. Eventually, I did three different medical interpreter training programs, each teaching me something new and improving my skills. The first few years opened my eyes to what it meant for one to be trained, qualified, and certified. It has been a marvelous learning experience.Now, with sixteen years of experience and the vastness and richness of being an interpreter in various settings, I continue to learn to be flexible, patient, and courageous. I've also learned to be a teacher because clinical staff have one perspective of what interpreting is, and we have another. I've learned to be courageous because the field of Language Access is very demanding and involves encountering a lot of biases and judgmental perspectives. Language Access champions advocate throughout the nation so that those who are working in this field will have better working conditions. Collaborations started in the community, extending into social services, legal, and beyond.Interpreting sessions that had the most impact are many, but a few stand out, including a patient I assisted who had presumed Locked-In Syndrome and a domestic abuse female at a maternal-fetal appointment. I have had to explain to a family what it means to be brain dead and have interpreted for numerous palliative care sessions.The presumed Locked-In syndrome patient was quite the experience. I had recently started working on the floor at the hospital and was making my rounds to Spanish-speaking inpatients. One morning, I arrived just as the physician team was making their rounds. I listened to the briefing: a 42-year-old female had suffered a stroke. She could not speak and could not use her extremities. The team had done what they could and reached the conclusion that she was "locked-in" because she was aware but their neurological exams were inconclusive. I asked if they had used the video or phone interpreting services and they said yes but it was not fruitful. I offered to rule out a language barrier. They agreed.It was then that the patient began making great progress in her recovery. The team was amazed at the patient's reaction. She cried when she heard her language spoken. We established communication via a board and eye signals. Speech therapy came and they were able to assess her ability to speak and swallow. While she remained approximately 6 months in the hospital, it was not until the last two [End Page 154] months that she made great strides, and it was all due to language access. Eventually, she was transferred to another healthcare facility closer to home. I was overjoyed and wondered why they had not had this success earlier. It was later determined that the connections were not good, and the interpreter could not "see" what the patient was doing.The domestic violence female was an emotional one for me. I was scheduled to assist at two of her appointments that morning: one at maternal fetal and the other at ENT. Upon arrival, I greeted her and noticed her eyes were watery and her face seemed a little swollen, but I did not want to make her feel embarrassed, so I remained quiet. I accompanied her to the ENT appointment first. The doctor asked her questions, and she seemed nervous. Still no intervention. We finished and went to the maternal-fetal appointment. On the way to the office, I asked if she was ok. She began to cry and said in a soft tone, looking around, that her partner had hit her on the way to the clinic.I was shocked! I knew that permission was needed to share this information with the providers and that her safety was critical. She thought... (shrink)

With certain topics the general reader experiences a double-whammy wherein one must peer through a curtain of needlessly obscure jargon to try glimpsing something that is inherently weird in nature. Bell’s nonlocality was once such a topic, but authors have had considerable success over the years in showing where the line is between the enigma itself and the human-made oddities surrounding it . Libet-ology has yet to undergo that de-mystifying process. Accordingly, our first order of business here is to restate (...) its basic tenets in plain English so that only nature’s inherent puzzle is left on the table, free of certain peculiarities of the existing technical literature. We also address the question of the central topic versus its byways, as alluded to by ‘left turn into veto-as-volition’ in our title. In the ensuing parts of the paper, we look outside the field to see how hypnotherapy and Hinduism might shed light on it. (shrink)

The role of reason, and its embodiment in philosophical-scientific theorizing, is always a troubling one for religious traditions. The deep emotional needs that religion strives to satisfy seem ever linked to an attitudes of acceptance, belief, or trust, yet, in its theoretical employment, reason functions as a critic as much as it does a creator, and in the special fields of metaphysics and epistemology its critical arrows are sometimes aimed at long-standing cherished beliefs. Understandably, the mere approach to these beliefs (...) through organized philosophical activity, however well-intended, is viewed with suspicion by ecclesiastical authorities and the devout. The attitude towards philosophical inquiry on the part of the Islamic religious community might be thought to typify this reaction. As one of the great prophetic religions, the self-avowed image of Islam is of a tradition which already possesses the truth as set forth in the divine revelation of the Qur'an. What need is there for philosophizing on fundamental matters, e.g., the ultimate nature of reality, the foundations of morality, the modes whereby the divine is connected with the temporal? The structure of creation is already made clear, the "straight path" for living already manifest. how can philosophical activity be anything but a source of divisive controversy, for as it turns its gaze to the foundations upon which the Shari`a' (Islamic Law) rests, or to the grounds for religious belief itself, it cannot avoid turning up alternative viewpoints, different perspectives on divine revelation, noting various weaknesses in received 1 interpretations? In short, isn't the practice of philosophy a threat to Islam's promise of providing a comprehensive way of living devoid of skepticism and uncertainty about the place of a human in God's creation and his or her role in the 'umma (Islamic community)? This problem is not unique to Islam, nor is it a new one within Islam. We know that it has been debated by Islamic thinkers since the translations of the Greek philosophers began to appear in an organized Islamic world during the 8th Century A.. (shrink)

People routinely use facial expressions to communicate successfully and to regulate other’s behaviour, yet modelling the form and meaning of these facial behaviours has proven surprisingly complex. One reason for this difficulty may lie in an over-reliance on the assumptions inherent in existing theories of facial expression – specifically that (1) there is a putative set of facial expressions that signal an internal state of emotion, (2) patterns of facial movement have been empirically linked to the prototypical emotions in this (...) set, and (3) static, non-social, posed images from convenience samples are adequate to validate the first two assumptions. These assumptions have guided the creation of datasets, which are then used to train unrepresentative computational models of facial expression. In this article, we discuss existing theories of facial expression and review how they have shaped current facial expression recognition tools. We then discuss the resources that are available to help researchers build a more ecologically valid model of facial expressions. (shrink)

This article explores the tension between standardization and flexibility in information infrastructure. Just like other large technical systems, the geographically dispersed yet highly interconnected II becomes increasingly resistant to change. Still, II design must anticipate and prepare for changes, even substantial ones, if infrastructure is to survive. An II contains a huge number of components that alternate between standardization and change throughout their lifetimes. These components are interdependent: when one is changed, others have to remain stable, and vice versa. The (...) article examines theoretical concepts for frammg these aspects of an II. The empirical underpinning of the article is a study of two existing embryonic manifestations of II. (shrink)

The argument from retraction (the speech act of “taking back” a previous speech act) has been one of the favorite arguments used by relativists about a variety of natural language expressions (predicates of taste, epistemic modals, moral and aesthetic claims etc.) in support of their view. The main consideration offered is that relativism can, while rival views cannot, account for this phenomenon. For some of those leading the charge, retraction is, in fact, mandatory: a norm of retraction makes it obligatory (...) for an agent to retract a previously unretracted assertion whenever what has been asserted is shown to be currently false. This norm, it is contended, distinguishes (radical) relativism from other views on the market. Recently, several considerations—both from the armchair and based on empirical studies—have been offered to undercut the support retraction has been taken to provide for relativism. In this paper, I engage with both types of considerations and lay out two strategies the radical relativist can follow: weakening the force of the retraction norm and restricting it to certain conditions. I explore how much of the recalcitrant data can be accounted for by each strategy, and show that the best route for the relativist is to adopt a flexible version of the view. Finally, I address the objection from ad-hocness in relation to the flexibility envisaged and put forward a principle based on the notion of the importance of the context of the assertor in a given context of assessment that underlies flexibility. (shrink)

An alternative to the standard endurance/perdurance accounts of persistence has recently been developed: the stage theory (Sider, T. Four-Dimensionalism: an Ontology of Persistence and Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001; Hawley, K. How Things Persist. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). According to this theory, a persisting object is identical with an instantaneous stage (temporal part). On the basis of Leibniz's Law, I argue that stage theorists either have to deny the alleged identity (i.e., give up their central thesis) or hold (...) that stages are both instantaneous and continuants. I subsequently show that, although stage theory is flexible enough to accommodate the latter claim, the cost for accommodating it is an excessive proliferation of persistence concepts. (shrink)

Efforts to ban Autonomous Weapon Systems were both unsuccessful and controversial. Simultaneously the need to address the detrimental aspects of AWS development and proliferation continues to grow in scope and urgency. The article presents several regulatory solutions capable of addressing the issue while simultaneously respecting the requirements of military necessity and so attracting a broad consensus. Two much stricter solutions – regional AWS bans and adoption of a no first use policy – are also presented as fallback strategies in case (...) achieving AWS’ compliance with the Laws of Armed Conflict proved elusive. Together, the solutions presented form an outline of a flexible regulatory strategy able to adjust to different technological outcomes and providing a sensible compromise to solve the current deadlock on the AWS issue. (shrink)

The Quality Attestation Presidential Task Force's recent proposal for “quality attestation” (QA) of clinical ethics consultants was advanced on the premise that, “[g]iven the importance of clinical ethics consultation, the people doing it should be asked to show that they do it well.” To this end, the task force attempted to develop “a standardized system for proactively assessing the knowledge, skills, and practice of clinical ethicists.” But can this proposed method deliver? If the proposed QA process is flawed, it will (...) label clinical ethicists as qualified to do clinical ethics consultations (CECs) when they are not. The result will be the creation of a new, likely intractable, problem of CEC “false positives:” consultants who have passed QA without actually possessing the requisite knowledge and skills to perform CECs.To avoid the risk of false positives, the QAPTF needs to conduct a rigorous analysis of the skills that the QA process will be positioned to judge and those that are simply beyond the scope of its current metrics. Rather than “attesting” to overall CEC “quality,” QA needs to be precise about the skill inventory it can confirm yet honest about the skills it has no basis to assess. I will argue here that QA has strong prospects for accurately assessing consultants’ competence in ethical analysis but very weak prospects for determining competence in two other skills listed as essential by the QAPTF: value‐neutrality and conflict resolution. (shrink)

Recent research on the semantics and pragmatics of slurs has offered insight into several important facts concerning their meaning and use. However, prior work has unfortunately been restricted primarily to considerations of slurs that typically target females, homosexuals, and African Americans. This is problematic because such a narrowly focused attention to slurs in prior work has left theorizing of how slurs generally function relatively uninformed by facts of actual language use. As a result, theoretical accounts of slurs that have so (...) far been proposed have largely failed to accurately reflect actual usage, account for the empirical findings about slurs and general pejoratives from the social sciences, and offer any informative predictions to help guide future research. At this time more empirically oriented homework on the variety of ways that different slurs have been used in different cases would be helpful for theorists to consider so that they can proceed to develop more nuanced and empirically informed theories about slurs, their usage, and their effects. Accordingly, since no account of slurs for Italian Americans has so far been offered, this article provides a systematic and empirically informed analysis of slurs for Italian Americans that accounts for both their derogatory and appropriative use. Further, this article demonstrates that the family resemblance account of slurs maintained here has major advantages over previous accounts insofar as it is flexible yet robust enough to accommodate both the derogatory and appropriative use of slurs, can explain many of the psychological effects that slurs actually have on both their users and targets, and is more in accord with the real rather than ideal nature of our organic human psychology. (shrink)

In searching for an appropriate utility function in the expected utility framework, we formulate four properties that we want the utility function to satisfy. We conduct a search for such a function, and we identify Pareto utility as a function satisfying all four desired properties. Pareto utility is a flexible yet simple and parsimonious two-parameter family. It exhibits decreasing absolute risk aversion and increasing but bounded relative risk aversion. It is applicable irrespective of the probability distribution relevant to the (...) prospect to be evaluated. Pareto utility is therefore particularly suited for catastrophic risk analysis. A new and related class of generalized exponential (gexpo) utility functions is also studied. This class is particularly relevant in situations where absolute risk tolerance is thought to be concave rather than linear. (shrink)

Traditional spatial enabled grammars lack flexibility in specifying the spatial semantics of graphs. This paper describes a new graph grammar formalism called the multigranularity Coordinate Graph Grammar (mgCGG) for spatial graphs. Based on the Coordinate Graph Grammar (CGG), the mgCGG divides coordinates into two categories, physical coordinates and grammatical coordinates, where physical coordinates are the common coordinates in the real world, and grammatical coordinates describe the restrictions on the spatial semantics. In the derivation and reduction of the mgCGG, the spatial (...) matching conditions between nodes are evaluated on the basis of the grammatical coordinates, which can be obtained by the specified granularities. By adjusting the granularities, both qualitative and quantitative analyses for spatial semantics can be obtained, including the transition states between them. In addition, a new redex searching algorithm with polynomial time complexity is designed for the mgCGG. A running example of drawing a flowchart is given to illustrate a practical application of the mgCGG. Through a detailed comparison with related spatial-enabled grammars, it is found that the mgCGG has good performance in four critical aspects—the semantics processing mechanism, fault-tolerance, redex searching algorithm, and practical application—providing a flexible yet uniform way to specify spatial graphs and building a bridge between nonspatial and spatial grammars. (shrink)

‘An honest religious thinker’, Wittgenstein remarked, ‘is like a tightrope walker. He almost looks as though he were walking on nothing but air. His support is the slenderest imaginable. And yet it really is possible to walk on it’.

An objective, honest, impartial history of our country's philosophy in the Soviet period—in a word, a history meeting the requirements of the times—is yet to be written. But it is much needed. Its creation is one of the most important, but perhaps also one of the most difficult of our tasks. There are still many superimposed layers that must be peeled away: for example, the bitter truth must be told about those who inscribed in this history—of course honorifically—their own (...) names and those of dogmatists who shared their ideas. But fortunately, it is not only naked emperors and their stooges, not only their subjects with their mutilated destinies, who will figure in a historical narration oriented toward the truth and facts. This grim context makes even brighter the noble role played by those figures—personalities in the highest sense of the word—whose names, works, and very lives were simply "expunged" from history. And by those who remained alive and in philosophy in the direst times, those who despite all the persecution, all the tribulations they endured, abandoned neither their honor nor philosophical truth. The unofficial authority of talented, creatively thinking scholars has always been extremely high. One of those highly authoritative philosophers of our country, one who today has an international name, was Valentin Ferdinandovich Asmus. (shrink)

The complexity and flexibility of tagmemic theory, as a semiotic theory developed by Kenneth L. Pike, can be better understood by examining how it applies to a simple semiotic system like traffic lights. We can then compare the result with how it functions in analyzing a piece of natural language. Tagmemic theory introduces three observer viewpoints – the particle view, the wave view, and the field view. Each view generates a suite of questions to answer. Any one of the views (...) results in a “complete” description of traffic lights, from which the information about the other views can be inferred. And yet each view is distinct in texture from the others, and the existence of such multiple views – each with a claim to emic integrity and each serving as a perspective on the whole – has to be accounted for in a robust semiotic approach. The same phenomena occur when we apply the three views to the analysis of meaning in natural language. The chief illustration is to analyze the meaning of the word dog in multiple ways. The multi-dimensional potential for semiotic analysis highlights the limitations of Aristotelian logic and symbolic logic, both of which simplify for the sake of rigor. (shrink)

The ability to flexibly switch between tasks is a hallmark of cognitive control. Despite previous studies that have investigated whether different task-switching types would be mediated by distinct or overlapping neural mechanisms, no definitive consensus has been reached on this question yet. Here, we aimed at directly addressing this issue by recording the event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by two types of task-switching occurring in the context of spatial and verbal cognitive domains. Source analysis was also applied to the ERP data (...) in order to track the spatial dynamics of brain activity underlying task-switching abilities. In separate blocks of trials, participants had to perform either spatial or verbal switching tasks both of which employed the same type of stimuli. The ERP analysis, which was carried out through a channel- and time-uninformed mass univariate approach, showed no significant differences between the spatial and verbal domains in the modulation of switch and repeat trials. Specifically, relative to repeat trials, switch trials in both domains were associated with a first larger positivity developing over left parieto-occipital electrodes and with a subsequent larger negativity distributed over mid-left fronto-central sites. The source analysis reconstruction for the two ERP components complemented these findings by highlighting the involvement of left-lateralized prefrontal areas in task-switching. Overall, our results join and extend recent research confirming the existence of left-lateralized domain-general task-switching processes. (shrink)

The declared goal of this paper is to fill this gap: “... cognitive systems research needs questions or challenges that define progress. The challenges are not (yet more) predictions of the future, but a guideline to what are the aims and what would constitute progress.” – the quotation being from the project description of EUCogII, the project for the European Network for Cognitive Systems within which this formulation of the ‘challenges’ was originally developed (http://www.eucognition.org). So, we stick out our neck (...) and formulate the challenges for artificial cognitive systems. These challenges are articulated in terms of a definition of what a cognitive system is: a system that learns from experience and uses its acquired knowledge (both declarative and practical) in a flexible manner to achieve its own goals. (shrink)

We like to think of ourselves, our friends, and our families as decent people. We may not be saints, but we are still honest, relatively kind, and mostly trustworthy. Miller argues here that we are badly mistaken in thinking this. Hundreds of recent studies in psychology tell a different story: that we all have serious character flaws that prevent us from being as good as we think we are - and that we do not even recognize that these flaws (...) exist. But neither are most of us cruel or dishonest. Instead, Miller argues, we are a mixed bag. On the one hand, most of us in a group of bystanders will do nothing as someone cries out for help in an emergency. Yet it is also true that there will be many times when we will selflessly come to the aid of a complete stranger - and resist the urge to lie, cheat, or steal even if we could get away with it. Much depends on cues in our social environment. Miller uses this recent psychological literature to explain what the notion of "character" really means today, and how we can use this new understanding to develop a character better in sync with the kind of people we want to be. (shrink)

We live in a 'bimoral' society, in which people govern their lives by two contrasting sets of principles. On the one hand there are the principles associated with traditional morality. Although these allow a modicum of self-interest, their emphasis is on our duties and obligations to others: to treat people honestly and with respect, to treat them fairly and without prejudice, to help and are for them when needed, and ultimately, to put their needs above their own. On the other (...) hand there are the principles associated with the entrepreneurial self-interest. These also impose obligations, but of a much more limited kind. Their emphasis is competitive rather than cooperative: to advance our own interests rather than to meet the needs of others. Both sets of principles have always been present in society but in recent years, traditional moral authorities have lost much of their force and the morality of self-interest has acquired a much greater social legitimacy, over a much wider field of behavior, than ever before. The result of this is that in many situations it is no longer at all apparent which set of principles should take precedence. In this book, John Hendry traces the cultural and historical origins of the 'bimoral' society have also led to new, more flexible forms of organizing, which have released people's entrepreneurial energies and significantly enhanced the creative capacities of business. Working within these organizations, however is fraught with moral tensions as obligations and self-interest conflict and managers are pulled in all sorts of different directions. Managing them successfully poses major new challenges of leadership, and 'moral' management, as the technical problem-solving that previously characterized managerial work is increasingly accomplished by technology and market mechanisms. The key role of management becomes the political and moral one of determining purposes and priorities, reconciling divergent interests, and nurturing trust in interpersonal relationships. Exploring these tensions and challenges, Hendry identifies new issues of contemporary management and puts recognized issues into context. He also explores the challenges posed for a post-traditional society as it seeks to regulate and govern an increasingly powerful and global business sector. (shrink)

ABSTRACTBrazil has not yet approved legislation on assisted reproduction. For this reason, clinics, hospitals and semen banks active in the area follow Resolution 1358/92 of the Conselho Federal de Medicina, dated 30 September 1992. In respect to semen donation, the object of this article, the Resolution sets out that gamete donation shall be anonymous, that is, that the donor and recipients shall not be informed of each other's identity. Thus, since recipients are unaware of the donor's identity, semen banks and (...) the medical teams involved in assisted reproduction become the intermediaries in the process. The objective of this article is to show that, in practice, this represents disrespect for the ethical principles of autonomy, privacy and equality. The article also stresses that the problem is compounded by the racial question. In a country like Brazil, where racial classification is so flexible and goes side by side with racist attitudes, the intermediary role played by semen banks and medical teams is conditioned by their own criteria of racial classification, which are not always the same as those of donors and semen recipients. The data presented in this paper were taken from two semen banks located in the city of São Paulo . At the time of my research, they were the only semen banks in the state of São Paulo and supplied semen to the capital , the state of São Paulo, and to cities in other Brazilian states where semen banks were not available. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Evangelical Peacemakers: Gospel Engagement in a War-Torn World ed. by David P. GusheeLisa Sowle CahillEvangelical Peacemakers: Gospel Engagement in a War-Torn World Edited by David P. Gushee EUGENE, OR: WIPF AND STOCK, 2013. 135 PP. $21.00This short volume collects papers from a 2012 Evangelicals for Peace conference at Georgetown University. This should not mislead potential readers as to the book's timeliness, coherence, significance, or ecumenical and interreligious appeal. (...) Much of its incisive analysis owes to the editor's preface, introductory chapter, and concluding critical discussion of the positions represented, including his own.Four chapters lay out the Christian arguments for just war, biblical pacifism, and the late Glen Stassen's "just peacemaking theory," presenting ten practices to deter or transform violent conflict. Although Gushee's chapter would have to be placed among just war theorists, he stresses that war must be a last resort to defend innocent life, carried out with the least violence possible. Gushee appreciates the paradox of expressing love through acts of violence. Lisa Sharon Harper insists this goes beyond paradox to outright denial of the redemption Jesus brings, failing to honor the image of God in all persons. Following Anglican theologian Oliver O'Donovan, Erik Patterson sees publicly authorized force to protect society as a positive Christian duty. Striving to unite these two sides in practice, Stassen derives alternative, nonviolent strategies from the Sermon on the Mount to transform conflict at the local, national, regional, and international levels.But are such efforts successful? Can and do Christian peacemakers actually bring about significant societal and political change? Twelve further chapters offer experience-based evidence from Evangelical organizations and ministries that the answer is yes. Authors describe initiatives at home and abroad, giving special attention to Christian–Muslim outreach and understanding. Examples range from Evangelical pastors and churches welcoming Muslims and mosques; to educational ventures in Pakistani madrassas; to organizing Afghan youth as "peace volunteers"; to conflict mediation in Egypt and Indonesia; and the memoir of a Lockerbie bombing victim's sister, who went personally to reconcile with Muammar Gaddafi. Sojourners editor Jim Wallis gives plenty of illustrations of the power in the United States of massive civil disobedience and efforts to pressure Congress or the president through letter and phone campaigns, protests, media attention, and high-level advocacy. Christian political resistance and mobilization can no longer be dismissed as utopian, naïve, or marginal. In many cases, it works.Gushee honestly and acutely articulates why pacifism and just war have had longstanding places in Christian political ethics, and why their adherents are [End Page 206] not easily reconciled. First, Jesus was nonviolent, and even those who construe rare and restrained violence as a form of neighbor love cannot deny that Jesus himself never expressed love in this way (121). Second, although Jesus calls disciples to participate in God's reign, that reign is but "eschatologically" present in a fallen world (119). Violence-transforming practices do not always work (125). Reconciling love may define kingdom discipleship, but when do we gauge love-in-action by the "present" reality of the kingdom, and when by the "not yet"? Third, according to Gushee, there is a difference (not separation) between church and government. This yields the conundrum that although their roles are different, Christians participate in both spheres, responsible not only for the peacemaking activities of the church but also for their social effects and for building just structures (5–6).Gushee does not claim to resolve these paradoxes. The collection underscores a more urgent challenge: to embody and expand Evangelical peacemaking as an integral dimension of discipleship and a powerful form of real-world politics. This book furthers theological-ethical analysis while leading scholars, students, and congregations to become active agents of change.Lisa Sowle CahillBoston CollegeCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

If we are flexible, hybrid and unfinished creatures that tend to incorporate or at least employ technological artefacts in our cognitive lives, then the sort of technological regime we live under should shape the kinds of minds we possess and the sorts of beings we are. E-Memory consists in digital systems and services we use to record, store and access digital memory traces to augment, re-use or replace organismic systems of memory. I consider the various advantages of extended and (...) embedded approaches to cognition in making sense of E-Memory and some of the problems that debate can engender. I also explore how the different approaches imply different answers to questions such as: does our use of internet technology imply the diminishment of ourselves and our cognitive abilities? Whether or not our technologies can become actual parts of our minds, they may still influence our cognitive profile. I suggest E-Memory systems have four factors: totality, practical cognitive incorporability, autonomy and entanglement which conjointly have a novel incorporation profile and hence afford some novel cognitive possibilities. I find that thanks to the properties of totality and incorporability we can expect an increasing reliance on E-Memory. Yet the potentially highly entangled and autonomous nature of these technologie pose questions about whether they should really be counted as proper parts of our minds. (shrink)

Academia is a competitive environment. Early Career Researchers (ECRs) are limited in experience and resources and especially need achievements to secure and expand their careers. To help with these issues, this book offers a new approach for conducting research using the combination of mindsponge innovative thinking and Bayesian analytics. This is not just another analytics book. 1. A new perspective on psychological processes: Mindsponge is a novel approach for examining the human mind’s information processing mechanism. This conceptual framework is used (...) to construct models in studies. The framework is highly flexible and widely applicable for many different types of information processes. The mindsponge approach can help researchers discover interesting ideas or even formulate their very own theories when investigating psychosocial phenomena. This approach brings a fresh wind to the current landscape of social sciences and humanities (SSH). 2. Easy-to-follow analysis protocol: The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF analytics) is useful in terms of computing and visualizing power but also easy to learn and apply. Contrary to being intimidating, the Bayesian analytics section of this book is presented in a reader-friendly manner with a detailed yet clear step-by-step procedure. Examples are from published BMF articles, allowing readers to immediately practice the method and quickly create their own applications. With educational purposes in mind, the book is very suitable for ECRs who are looking to innovate their research methods. 3. Advocating for low-cost, high-quality research: Doing science can be very costly. Mindsponge innovative thinking and BMF analytics help produce impactful studies using openly available data on online repositories. This is based on the authors’ previous works and experiences. The book presents examples of employing the open R package bayesvl on secondary data from different sources. With less financial constraints, researchers can have more freedom of thought to pursue their curiosity and creativity. ECRs in low- and middle-income countries may find this aspect crucial in their careers. 4. Support and collaboration: The authors share their insights from experiences in the academic publishing system to help readers get through the processes of manuscript writing and peer-reviewing more easily. The authors are also ready to support other researchers with further inquiries and collaboration opportunities at the following website, mindsponge(dot)info. This book is for: a) ECRs whose only abundant resources are their innovation capacity and strength of will; b) Researchers in SSH who want to explore a novel approach to thinking and study conducting; c) Low- and middle-income countries’ researchers looking for a cost-effective research protocol; and, d) Innovative thinkers who want to turn their interesting thoughts into good publications. (shrink)

Utilitarianism, the great reforming philosophy of the nineteenth century, has today acquired the reputation for being a crassly calculating, impersonal philosophy unfit to serve as a guide to moral conduct. Yet what may disqualify utilitarianism as a personal philosophy makes it an eminently suitable guide for public officials in the pursuit of their professional responsibilities. Robert E. Goodin, a philosopher with many books on political theory, public policy and applied ethics to his credit, defends utilitarianism against its critics and shows (...) how it can be applied most effectively over a wide range of public policies. In discussions of such issues as paternalism, social welfare policy, international ethics, nuclear armaments, and international responses to the environment crisis, he demonstrates what a flexible tool his brand of utilitarianism can be in confronting the dilemmas of public policy in the real world. (shrink)

Independent on Sunday October 2nd One of the country's lead­ing philosophical counsellers, and chairman of the Society for Philosophy in Practice (SPP), Tim LeBon, said it typically took around six 50 ­minute sessions for a client to move from confusion to resolution. Mr LeBon, who has 'published a book on the subject, Wise Therapy, said philoso­phy was perfectly suited to this type of therapy, dealing as it does with timeless human issues such as love, purpose, happiness and emo­tional challenges. `Wise (...) Therapy, is part of a series aimed at promoting an integrative attitude as its ethos. Among all the many perspectives of psychotherapists and counselors, philosophy needs to take its place and needs to find its voice. Tim LeBon has provided an effective means by which counselors can bring philosophy into their work with clients' - APPA journal `Tim Le Bon's Wise Therapy is a comprehensible and well argued book dealing with the practical therapeutic applications of philosophical research that may well be of interest to philosophers but -- as the author himself intends -- will be of most obvious benefit to therapists and counselors, both by informing their dialogue with clients in new ways and by helping them become more informed about ways to resolve the ethical dilemmas arising within the context of their own work' - Metapsychology `A fascinating workshop for therapists and clients, backed up a thorough degree if philosophical acuity' - Journal of the Society for Existential Analysis `I strongly recommend the book for philosophers as well as practitioners, teachers, students and supervisors in counselling and psychotherapy' - Self and Society `Provides some additional and valuable arrows for the therapist's quiver' - Irvin Yalom, author of Love's Executioner `Like Aristotle, Tim LeBon examines what is said and extracts what is best from it…. There are many fascinating exercises designed to bring out and enlighten the client's values, conception of the good life, well-being, happiness, pleasure, and the proper place of reason in life…. Wise Therapy is well written and engaging. The case histories are illuminating examples of therapeutic techniques at work, the thought experiments are well designed, and the philosophical position adapted from the internal debates of the philosophers is level headed…. I recommend it highly to philosophers with an interest in counselling, and psychological counsellors with an interest in philosophy' - Jeff Mason, The Philosophers' Magazine `Tim LeBon has… authored a text which should become a staple on the philosophical counsellor's bookshelf…. Wise Therapy is a concise, well-written book…. His ability to relate philosophical concepts to counselling concerns is admirable and attests to the skill and knowledge he possesses as a working counsellor. But, by far the most important part of Tim LeBon's book to PC is the last chapter, "The Counsellor's Philosophical Toolbox"' - Craig Munns in The Examined Life ` Tim LeBon has done a good job of offering practical approaches to some of the most important and vexing issues that arise in counselling…. Tim LeBon's book contains helpful suggestions, practical information, and useful examples, and would make a good addition to the library of any counsellors willing to allow philosophy to turn mere client sessions into wise therapy' - Peter Raabe, Practical Philosophy Wise Therapy is an original and practical guide to how philosophy can benefit counselling and psychotherapy. Tim LeBon argues that therapy, informed by philosophy, can help clients make better decision and achieve emotional wisdom. He uses philosophical approaches to explore issues of right and wrong, the emotions and reasons, well-being and the meaning of life, and develops a 'counsellor's toolbox' of techniques that can help practitioners apply the wisdom of philosophy to good therapeutic practice. For counsellors who may find philosophical approaches to therapy useful, this work addresses key philosophical topics - the emotions, free will, the meaning of life and ethics. It is jargon-free where possible and assumes no previous philosophical training. From The Independent, 16th November 2004 Plato is my agony aunt It was the end of a love affair that broke her heart. Could the wisdom of the great philosophers show her how to be happy again? Claire Smith tries a novel form of therapy "The unexamined life is not worth living," Socrates said. Nor is the life you're left with after your boyfriend has left you for another woman - at least, that's how it felt in October last year when mine broke rank and went off with an art student from Cleveland, Ohio. We were over there for the opening of his new art exhibition. He'd flown over four days before me and had met her at a party. Supposedly, they "connected". The five months that followed were a roller-coaster of confusion, vitriol and despair. I knew there'd been problems in our relationship. We saw the world very differently; he delighted in the charm of the ordinary, I wanted maximum divinity. He walked; I galloped. He drank tea; I loathed the stuff. But, along the banks of the Thames, we'd made a promise to always stick together. Our love was something unique: "transcendental", I called it. And besides, we recycled. Surely a commitment to save the world would save our relationship? Alas, no. So there I was, a woman scorned. Hell truly hath no greater fury. And what made it worse was that I still believed in our transcendental love. If I wanted to change the way I was feeling, I needed to alter the way I was thinking. But how? A few bottles of wine and a sharp blow to the head might have done the trick. Fortunately, there's an older, more trusted way of turning your head on its head that counsellors are starting to use: philosophy. The idea of employing Plato as an agony aunt was begun in 1981 by the German philosopher Gerd Achenbach. Although philosophy spends a lot of its time asking real-life questions that affect real-life people - What is happiness? And is it always wrong to lie? - most of the debate goes on in ivory towers. What Achenbach and subsequent philosophers including Tim LeBon, the chairman of the UK's Society for Philosophy in Practice, wanted to do was "give practical application" to this gigantic library of great thoughts. So how does it work? Like most types of therapy, you sign up for a set of sessions. "Two would give you a new perspective on one issue; six would help you to make a major life-decision, like a career change; with 12 you can start to rethink your entire life philosophy," explains LeBon. Each session lasts 50 minutes and costs £50 - and, no, you don't have to have any previous knowledge of philosophy. "If you think of Friends, it would suit Ross and Chandler more than Joey," LeBon says. "It's for anyone who wants to make their emotions more intelligent. Or for those who have tried other kinds of therapy, and want something more cerebral." The first session begins with the patient venting off about whatever's troubling them. The rant over, the counsellor then picks out some key concepts that are crucial to the problem - in the case of heartbreak, it is love and happiness that come hurtling to the fore - and then gets the patient to define what they mean. So, what is love? What is happiness? To kick-start the patient's thinking, LeBon describes what a great philosopher had to say about it. In my case, he tells me what Plato wrote about love in his Symposium: that to stop man fighting the gods, Zeus decided to cut each human in two, so they would lose their strength. "This, then, is the source of our desire to love each other," Plato said. "Each of us is a 'matching half' of a human whole, because each was sliced like a flatfish, two out of one, and each of us is always seeking the half that matches him." This method of probing what we might think are "obvious" ideas, such as love and happiness, was devised by Socrates in the squares of Athens. "The only I thing I know is that I know nothing at all," he boasted. What Socrates showed was that although many of the thinkers of his time thought they knew what justice, happiness and goodness meant, their understanding was tied in to their personal agenda and world view, and, what's more, when pushed, their ideas often contradicted themselves. A bit like me on love. Whereas part of my understanding of love was something that gave life meaning, made it worth living and bound us together, I also believed that true love was "transcendental": that it was out of this world, and it didn't matter if the two people who loved each other couldn't get along in the day-to-day. Love was bigger than the mundane. But when it came to the next stage of the therapy, critical thinking - "to check out whether your assumptions stand up to examination" - I walked head first into a contradiction. If I think love's purpose is to make life worth living, but then say it's irrelevant to daily life, surely my two ideas of love are not compatible? As the cogs in my brain start to creak into motion, I feel myself taking a step back from my predicament: thinking about how I've been thinking. This idea I had of transcendental love might have started off as a romantic dream. But when the relationship stopped working, and I found myself feeling trapped and frustrated, I used it to justify the mechanics of a relationship that just didn't work in the daily grind. I used it to lie to myself. In the final stage, LeBon gets me to start thinking about how to go forward. "You can't change what has happened," he says. "You can't change that he's left you, or how you behaved in the relationship. So, as the Stoics did, let's work on controlling the controllables: the things that you can change." To work out what can be changed, he gets me to try out a thought experiment, a method often used in philosophy to imagine other worlds where people can have different codes of behaviour. Thought experiments shatter your preconceived ideas of how the world should be and let your imagination run wild to how the world could be. "I find Viktor Frankl very useful here, the Austrian psychiatrist and concentration-camp survivor who actually believed that everything in life happens for a purpose," LeBon says. "Suppose this break-up did happen for a reason that will work to your benefit," he suggests. "What might that be? The answer might be that you can now focus on something important that was denied in the relationship. Or - the Hollywood version - so you'll meet someone who is really right for you." Temporarily freed of any sense of responsibility for the relationship that was, and its sorry demise, the list came fast. I could now travel more; he didn't like me travelling on my own, but too often he didn't want to go anywhere, preferring to stay in his studio and make art. I'd love to meet someone with a similar sense of adventure to mine. For the first time in two years, I was being honest with myself about what I really wanted - listening to those voices that we all have inside our heads, and too often try to muzzle. So did philosophy save me? Well, I'm now dating a travel writer I have to run to keep up with. I still haven't got over the fact that my replacement came from Cleveland, Ohio. But I guess I never will. Tim LeBon can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] A FEW WORDS FROM THE WISE Compiled by Ed Caesar · "At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet" - Plato · "There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness" - Friedrich Nietzsche · "That man shall live as his own master and in happiness who can say each day 'I have lived'" - Horace · "The good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue... Moreover this activity must occupy a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring, nor does one fine day; and similarly one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely blessed and happy" - Aristotle · "There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than friendship" - Thomas Aquinas · "Whatever you do... love those who love you" - Voltaire · "Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination" - Immanuel Kant · "Happiness is a state of which you are unconscious. The moment you are aware that you are happy, you cease to be happy" - Jiddu Krishnamurti · "Love is an ideal thing. Marriage is a real thing" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe I shrink, therefore I am Therapy has many answers, but some questions require the help of a philosopher, says Clint Witchalls Sunday November 21, 2004 The Observer Danny had worked in the City of London for 10 years. As a research analyst, stockbroker and fund manager, he'd made a lot of valuable contacts, earnt a lot of cash, and learnt some important business skills. However, as he approached his mid-thirties, he no longer felt good about himself or what he did for a living, and he found his colleagues cold and unfriendly. A chronic illness made him realise his mortality, and he began to reassess his priorities. Danny had been struggling with his career conundrum for nearly five years when he met David Arnaud, a philosophical counsellor. After a few soul-searching sessions, Danny arrived at a decision. Today, he teaches economics to sixth-formers, and he loves it. 'It's a much better lifestyle,' he says. Many people are turning to philosophical counsellors to get answers to questions such as: 'How do I make sense of myself?' 'What is important to me?' 'Where am I going?' These are perhaps not the sort of questions that require psychiatric intervention, but Arnaud, who recently completed the first empirical study of philosophical counselling in the UK, has found that within just five sessions the majority of clients, with important decisions to make, tend to move from a state of concern and confusion to a resolution. Modern philosophical counselling can be traced back to 1981, when the philosopher Gerd Achenbach opened the first practice near Cologne. Achenbach referred to the new discipline as 'therapy for the sane.' Today, there are hundreds of philosophical counsellors around the world, with the movement particularly strong in the US, Britain and the Netherlands. 'The dilemmas people face aren't always primarily psychological,' says Alex Howard, a philosophical counsellor from Newcastle. 'If people face problems that are social or economic, it doesn't make sense to define their problems in purely psychological terms.' Tim LeBon, a founder member of the Society for Philosophy in Practice (SPP) and author of Wise Therapy, adds: 'We are faced with far more life choices than our grandparents, yet have far fewer resources to deal with them. Our grandparents may have gone to a priest or to other family members for advice; most people don't trust these solutions any more and so want to make their own well-informed, well thought-out choices. Philosophical counselling can help these people - people in mid-life crises who are wondering how to make the most of the rest of their life. People who want to take stock of their values.' Where stressed executives might once have been prescribed a course of tranquillisers or antidepressants, they can now get a dose of Bertrand Russell instead: 'Success is too dearly purchased if all the other ingredients have been sacrificed to obtain it.' While some philosophical counsellors do recommend books for their clients to read, most sessions are about helping the client identify faulty thoughts. For example, a briefing in Aristotelian logic might show a client why their beliefs are erroneous. The person might infer that they're a screw-up because they've screwed up. The counsellor could point out that they're making an error called 'fallacy of composition' - that is, what's true of the part isn't necessarily true of the whole. In philosophical counselling, problems aren't pathologised as they are by the psychiatric profession, and the dialogue between client and counsellor is more like a meeting of equals, compared to many therapies where the client is treated like a patient and seen as someone who is, in some way, inadequate. 'Anybody can benefit from philosophical counselling,' says Howard. 'But it does require someone who is willing to take stock.' Lou Marinoff, author of international bestseller Plato Not Prozac! has done much to promote philosophical counselling. 'Some people who have stabilised their neurochemistry and validated their emotions now wish to examine or re-examine the criteria of their beliefs, the principles of their conduct, or the meaning of their lives,' he says. 'With whom shall they do this? Psychologists and psychiatrists can shed light on such issues - as can rabbis, priests, imams and gurus. Philosophers are now rejoining the ranks of helpers.' LeBon believes certain therapies (such as cognitive behavioural therapy) don't go far enough in helping their clients. 'For instance, if you are anxious about your relationship, a cognitive therapist would try to dispute your catastrophising and jump to conclusions to make you feel less anxious,' says LeBon. 'A philosophical counsellor would do this, but would also look for existential meaning in your anxiety - perhaps you really don't want to be in the relationship and that is what your anxiety is telling you.' LeBon also gives short shrift to psychoanalysts. 'There's very little evidence for the Freudian unconscious, and it's time to move on to more intellectually satisfying and helpful therapies,' he says. However, Alain de Botton, the man who popularised philosophy as self-help, isn't ready to bury psychologists and their ilk just yet. 'The truth is that psychoanalysis grew out of philosophy - it's not some completely new idea, and in fact, done properly, psychoanalysis is philosophical anyway. It may even be dangerous to the mental health of some people to suggest a philosopher rather than a properly trained analyst. The knowledge of analysts when it comes to many emotional problems is now much greater than that of most philosophers.' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004. (shrink)

In a dynamic world, mechanisms allowing prediction of future situations can provide a selective advantage. We suggest that memory systems differ in the degree of flexibility they offer for anticipatory behavior and put forward a corresponding taxonomy of prospection. The adaptive advantage of any memory system can only lie in what it contributes for future survival. The most flexible is episodic memory, which we suggest is part of a more general faculty of mental time travel that allows us not (...) only to go back in time, but also to foresee, plan, and shape virtually any specific future event. We review comparative studies and find that, in spite of increased research in the area, there is as yet no convincing evidence for mental time travel in nonhuman animals. We submit that mental time travel is not an encapsulated cognitive system, but instead comprises several subsidiary mechanisms. A theater metaphor serves as an analogy for the kind of mechanisms required for effective mental time travel. We propose that future research should consider these mechanisms in addition to direct evidence of future-directed action. We maintain that the emergence of mental time travel in evolution was a crucial step towards our current success. (shrink)

Autonomous vehicles —and accidents they are involved in—attest to the urgent need to consider the ethics of artificial intelligence. The question dominating the discussion so far has been whether we want AVs to behave in a ‘selfish’ or utilitarian manner. Rather than considering modeling self-driving cars on a single moral system like utilitarianism, one possible way to approach programming for AI would be to reflect recent work in neuroethics. The agent–deed–consequence model :3–20, 2014a, Behav Brain Sci 37:487–488, 2014b) provides a (...) promising descriptive and normative account while also lending itself well to implementation in AI. The ADC model explains moral judgments by breaking them down into positive or negative intuitive evaluations of the agent, deed, and consequence in any given situation. These intuitive evaluations combine to produce a positive or negative judgment of moral acceptability. For example, the overall judgment of moral acceptability in a situation in which someone committed a deed that is judged as negative would be mitigated if the agent had good intentions and the action had a good consequence. This explains the considerable flexibility and stability of human moral judgment that has yet to be replicated in AI. This paper examines the advantages and disadvantages of implementing the ADC model and how the model could inform future work on ethics of AI in general. (shrink)

Failure, success's ugly sister, is inevitable - cognitively, biologically and morally. We all make mistakes, we all die, and we all get it wrong. A chain of flaws can be traced through all phenomena, natural and human. We see impending and actual failures in individual lives, in marriages, careers, in religion, education, psychotherapy, business, nations, and in entire civilizations. And there are chronic and imperceptible failures in everyday domains that most of the time we barely notice, often until it is (...) too late. Colin Feltham expores what constitutes failure across a number of domains. He takes guidance from the work of such diverse philosophers and thinkers as Diogenes, Epictetus, Augustine, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, Cioran and Ricoeur, while also drawing on the insights of artists and writers such as van Gogh, Arthur Miller, Philip Larkin, Samuel Beckett, Charles Bukowski and Philip Roth. Precursors and partial synonyms for failure can be seen in the concepts of hamartia, sin, fallenness, non-being, false consciousness and anthropathology. Philosophy can help us but is itself, in its reliance on language and logic, subject to inherent flaws and failures. It is the very pervasiveness yet common denial of failure which makes it a compelling topic that cries out for honest analysis. We live in a time when the cliche of failed Marxism may be segueing frighteningly into the failure of 'selfish capitalism', in a time of geopolitical uncertainty and failure to address the dire need for agreement and action on climate change. But many of us are also painfully aware of our own shortcomings, our own weakness of will and lack of authenticity. Trying to identify where the lines may be drawn between individual responsibility, social policy, and historical and biological dark forces is a key challenge in this fascinating book. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"Call me Dr. XXX!"Yilu MaDisclaimers. Names have been changed to protect the privacy of those mentioned.Scheduled to interpret for a Mandarin-speaking woman, I entered the examination room and introduced myself to the neurologist and the patient, who was accompanied by her husband, brimming with smiles and sitting on the edge of the chair."How are you, Katie?" the husband greeted the doctor, using his accented English."Call me Doctor XXX!", the (...) physician returned, her eyebrows knotted with gravity. Immediately, the friendly and light-hearted air in the room froze.This occurred many years ago at a small clinic where I usually went to interpret as a per-diem interpreter. It happened so quickly that I was totally unprepared, and honestly, shocked at the way the physician reacted to the husband. I felt bad for the patient who sat next to her husband without saying anything, being quiet throughout the interactions. She suffered from dementia and was so dependent on her husband. I also felt slightly angry at the doctor's insensitive response to a mere friendly gesture, though seemingly improper, given the conventional power dynamics between the patient and the physician and the way doctors are esteemed in the American medical culture. But the doctor could have reacted to this perceived slight and disrespect with a mere laugh or simply pretended not to have heard it.Even more distinct was the fact the doctor showed her irritation in front of a third party—me, the medical interpreter. I felt she almost directed that to me and right in my face, and yet I felt powerless, helpless, and even embarrassed. I wondered if the doctor would do the same in front of her other colleagues—physicians and nurses. She might have been more diplomatic. Was her rebuke an impulsive reaction or a deliberate projection of her power, putting the husband back into his place? Should I intervene to ameliorate the impact and explain it? What if the doctor became angry with me if I ventured, and would it worsen things despite my good intentions? All these questions were stirring around in my head. Eventually, I decided to mind my own business and stayed in my role. But this episode of her open reprimand and implicit power projection stuck in my mind then and many years after.Over the years, I moved up from a medical interpreter to the Director of the Interpreter Services Department of a major teaching hospital in Boston and worked deliberately to elevate the status of [End Page 151] medical interpreters by educating clinicians about who we are, what we do, what qualifications and trainings we have and the unique roles we play in cross-cultural communication and care delivery. We demythologized medical interpreters' traditionally reductive role of mouthpiece and advocated their full-fledged member role on the care team. Through our regular conversations and dialogues (instead of top-down teaching sessions by clinicians), medical interpreters partner and team up with physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, ethicists, residents, and fellows. We learn from one another to foster a culture of collaboration and mutual respect, gradually bringing about a transformation of power dynamics; medical interpreters are valued for their unique roles of language conduit, clarifier, cultural broker and patient advocate. Interpreters now are empowered to ask questions, seek clarification, and advise on care approaches before, during, and after medical encounters with confidence and teamwork spirit.One of the tangible changes that we collectively implemented is that for each patient appointment, we will allocate time for a short meeting between the interpreter and the provider in what we call a "pre-huddle"; the purpose of the quick meeting is for the provider to brief the interpreter about the patient's medical condition and the goal of treatment. The provider will use the opportunity to solicit any input from the interpreter around language and cultural challenges.The interpreter, possibly having worked with the patient before, will provide some background and context if proper and necessary. This simple process change has boosted the interpreter's morale and engagement. Both parties feel comfortable and familiar with each other's roles and moves. By working in such an environment of... (shrink)

For many years to come, race will continue to be a source of controversy and conflict in American society. For many of us it will continue to shape where we live, pray, go to school, and socialize. We cannot simply wish away the existence of race or racism, but we can take steps to lessen the ways in which the categories trap and confine us. Educators, who should be committed to helping young people realize their intellectual potential as they make (...) their way toward adulthood, have a responsibility to help them find ways to expand identities related to race so that they can experience the fullest possibility of all that they may become. In this brutally honest—yet ultimately hopeful— book Pedro Noguera examines the many facets of race in schools and society and reveals what it will take to improve outcomes for all students. From achievement gaps to immigration, Noguera offers a rich and compelling picture of a complex issue that affects all of us. (shrink)

"This book is a comprehensive attack on several of the views that have been most influential in the philosophy of psychology during the last two decades. Professor Baker argues that mentalistic notions should not be eliminated, and need not be explained in terms of other notions, in cognitive science.' The book is interesting and shows an honest concern for clear argumentation. It deserves a wide readership." --Tyler Burge, University of California at Los Angeles"This book is a provocative and relentlessly (...) argued treatment of a deep and important topic: the fate of intentionality. Baker's arguments oblige those who wish to defend the current conception of cognitive science to rethink the discipline. She has put the ball squarely in the physicalists' court. ... Despite the technical character of the topic, the book is wonderfully readable."--John Heil, Visiting Fellow, University of California, BerkeleyThis stimulating book critically examines a wide range of physicalistic conceptions of mind in the works of Jerry A. Fodor, Stephen P. Stich, Paul M. Churchland, Daniel C. Dennett, and others. Part I argues that intentional concepts cannot be reduced to nonintentional (and nonsemantic) concepts; Part II argues that intentional concepts are nevertheless indispensable to our cognitive enterprises and thus need no foundation in physicalism.As a sustained challenge to the prevailing interpretation of cognitive science, this timely book fills a large gap in the philosophical literature. It is sure to spark controversy, yet its clarity makes it attractive as a text in upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Saving Belief should be read byphilosophers, psychologists, and others interested in the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science. (shrink)