A model of face representation, inspired by the biology of the visual system, is compared to experimental data on the perception of facial similarity. The face representation model uses aggregate primary visual cortex (V1) cell responses topographically linked to a grid covering the face, allowing comparison of shape and texture at corresponding points in two facial images. When a set of relatively similar faces was used as stimuli, this Linked Aggregate Code (LAC) predicted human performance in similarity judgment experiments. When (...) faces of perceivable categories were used, dimensions such as apparent sex and race emerged from the LAC model without training. The dimensional structure of the LAC similarity measure for the mixed category task displayed some psychologically plausible features but also highlighted differences between the model and the human similarity judgements. The human judgements exhibited a racial perceptual bias that was not shared by the LAC model. The results suggest that the LAC based similarity measure may offer a fertile starting point for further modelling studies of face representation in higher visual areas, including studies of the development of biases in face perception. (shrink)

There is growing interest in the use of technology to enhance the tracking and quality of clinical information available for patients in disaster settings. This paper describes the design and evaluation of the Wireless Internet Information System for Medical Response in Disasters (WIISARD).

In general, there are two ways to approach cognition. One is to start with the features of the human case and try to generalize to other species. Another is to start with the biological conditions under which natural cognition evolved and currently operates and ask what organisms do such that they might require cognition. A full account of cognition requires both. Cognitive biology, however, requires a biogenic approach. Tight integration with biological knowledge places strong constraints on cognitive explanation. These constraints (...) arise from the fact that cognition evolved in a particular context with very special features. All organisms are complex, self-organizing, dynamical systems that exist far from thermodynamic equilibrium and actively maintain themselves in this statistically improbable state by continuously manufacturing the components of the processes that sustain them. Organisms thus must interact with the world in ways that allow them to actively secure matter and energy. They are also persistence-valuing systems: most organisms have mechanisms for resisting or avoiding perturbations that threaten their integrity. A biogenic approach thus stresses the role of mechanisms that facilitate system persistence, for example, those that integrate information concerning external and internal states of affairs to facilitate adaptive behaviour; differentiate some states of affairs from others; invest different properties of the environment with different degrees of salience; appraise system needs relative to prevailing conditions, the potential for interaction, and whether the current interaction is succeeding ; and reduce the impact of random perturbations on system functioning, of which there are many, potentially lethal sources. These are recognisably cognitive functions. Mounting evidence suggests that even bacteria grapple with problems long familiar to cognitive scientists, including: integrating information from multiple sensory channels to marshal an effective response to fluctuating conditions; making decisions under conditions of uncertainty; communicating with conspecifics and others ; and coordinating collective behaviour to increase the chances of survival. Thus a biogenic approach not only justifies the use of very simple biological models to study cognition, it suggests that this is precisely where we ought to look to ascertain the general logic of the function, as well as the mechanisms that carry it out. (shrink)

This paper summarizes some of the major concepts of Raimo Tuomela’s social ontology as it is articulated and defended in his most recent major works and provides a set of objections to it. It also suggests some ways to plausibly revise Tuomela’s analysis of social groups in order to evade our concerns.

Epistemic defeat is standardly understood in either evidentialist or responsibilist terms. The seminal treatment of defeat is an evidentialist one, due to John Pollock, who famously distinguishes between undercutting and rebutting defeaters. More recently, an orthogonal distinction due to Jennifer Lackey has become widely endorsed, between so-called doxastic (or psychological) and normative defeaters. We think that neither doxastic nor normative defeaters, as Lackey understands them, exist. Both of Lackey’s categories of defeat derive from implausible assumptions about epistemic responsibility. Although Pollock’s (...) evidentialist view is superior, the evidentialism per se can be purged from it, leaving a general structure of defeat that can be incorporated in a reliabilist theory that is neither evidentialist nor responsibilist in any way. (shrink)

This is the first book published that specifically examines questions of ethics and advocacy that arise in conducting research on homelessness, exploring the issues through the deeply personal experiences of some of the field’s leading scholars. By examining the central queries from a broad range of perspectives, the authors presented here draw upon years of rich investigations to generate a framework that will be instructive for researchers across a wide spectrum of areas of inquiry.

We present an investigation into the relation between design princi- ples in Japanese gardens, and their associated perceptual effects. This leads to the realization that a set of design principles described in a Japanese gardening text by Shingen (1466), shows many parallels to the visual effects of perceptual grouping, studied by the Gestalt school of psychology. Guidelines for composition of rock clusters closely relate to perception of visual figure. Garden design elements are arranged into patterns that simplify figure-ground segmentation, while (...) seemingly balancing the visual salience of subparts and the global arrangement. Visual ‘ground’ is analyzed via medial axis transformation (MAT), often associated with shape perception in humans. MAT analysis reveals implicit structure in the visual ground of a quintessential rock garden design. The MAT structure enables formal com- parison of structure of figure and ground. They share some aesthetic qualities, with interesting differences. Both contain naturalistic asymmetric, self-similar, branching structures. While the branching pattern of the ground converges towards the viewer, that of the figure converges in the opposite direction. (shrink)

Introduction of O2 to Earth's early biosphere stimulated remarkable evolutionary adaptations, and a wide range of electron acceptors allowed diverse, energy-yielding metabolic pathways. Enzymatic reduction of O2 yielded a several-fold increase in energy production, enabling evolution of multi-cellular animal life. However, utilization of O2 also presented major challenges as O2 and many of its derived reactive oxygen species are highly toxic, possibly impeding multicellular evolution after the Great Oxidation Event. Remarkably, ROS, and especially hydrogen peroxide, seem to play a major (...) part in early diversification and further development of cellular respiration and other oxygenic pathways, thus becoming an intricate part of evolution of complex life. Hence, although harnessing of chemical and thermo-dynamic properties of O2 for aerobic metabolism is generally considered to be an evolutionary milestone, the ability to use ROS for cell signaling and regulation may have been the first true breakthrough in development of complex life. The importance of Earth's oxygen cycle and reactive oxygen species produced on the evolution of complex life. The ability to detoxify oxygen species is not a trait that emerged as a response to increased O2 levels but rather crucial adaptation to the early Earth's weakly oxic microenvironments. (shrink)

This article presents results from a multidisciplinary research project on the integration and transfer of language knowledge into robots as an empirical paradigm for the study of language development in both humans and humanoid robots. Within the framework of human linguistic and cognitive development, we focus on how three central types of learning interact and co-develop: individual learning about one's own embodiment and the environment, social learning (learning from others), and learning of linguistic capability. Our primary concern is how these (...) capabilities can scaffold each other's development in a continuous feedback cycle as their interactions yield increasingly sophisticated competencies in the agent's capacity to interact with others and manipulate its world. Experimental results are summarized in relation to milestones in human linguistic and cognitive development and show that the mutual scaffolding of social learning, individual learning, and linguistic capabilities creates the context, conditions, and requisites for learning in each domain. Challenges and insights identified as a result of this research program are discussed with regard to possible and actual contributions to cognitive science and language ontogeny. In conclusion, directions for future work are suggested that continue to develop this approach toward an integrated framework for understanding these mutually scaffolding processes as a basis for language development in humans and robots. (shrink)

In this study William Lyons presents a sustained and coherent theory of the emotions, and one which draws extensively on the work of psychologists and physiologists in the area. Dr Lyons starts by giving a thorough and critical survey of other principal theories, before setting out his own 'causal-evaluative' account. In addition to giving an analysis of the nature of emotion - in which, Dr Lyon argues, evaluative attitudes play a crucial part - his theory throws light on (...) the motivating role of emotions in our lives, our attitudes towards our emotions and our responsibility for them. (shrink)

This essay investigates the influences that led J.B. Watson to change from being a student in an introspectionist laboratory at Chicago to being the founder of systematic (or radical) behaviourism. Our focus is the crucial period, 1913-1914, when Watson struggled to give a convincing behaviourist account of mental imaging, which he considered to be the greatest obstacle to his behaviourist programme. We discuss in detail the evidence for and against the view that, at least eventually, Watson rejected outright the very (...) existence of mental images. We also discuss in detail whether or not Knight Dunlap was the crucial influence on his eventual rejection of mental images. Finally we consider whether Watson's rejection of mental images was bolstered by some personal incapacity as regards imaging or whether his rejection was more like a form of 'ideological blindness'. (shrink)

J s mill's principle of liberty is often thought to say that the only good reason for interfering with a person's conduct is that it is harmful to others. An alternative interpretation is defended: that the only good reason for interfering is to prevent harm to others. Harm-Prevention is the aim, But the latter principle allows that conduct affected not be harmful; interference must be calculated to prevent harm to others, Perhaps indirectly. This accords with mill's official statement of his (...) principle, Accommodates his own otherwise troublesome examples of cooperation and good samaritan requirements, And fits as well with the texts. (shrink)

The anticipated social capabilities of robots may allow them to serve in authority roles as part of human-machine teams. To date, it is unclear if, and to what extent, human team members will comply with requests from their robotic teammates, and how such compliance compares to requests from human teammates. This research examined how the human-likeness and physical embodiment of a robot affect compliance to a robot's request to perseverate utilizing a novel task paradigm. Across a set of two studies, (...) participants performed a visual search task while receiving ambiguous performance feedback. Compliance was evaluated when the participant requested to stop the task and the coach urged the participant to keep practicing multiple times. In the first study, the coach was either physically co-located with the participant or located remotely via a live-video. Coach type varied in human-likeness and included either a real human, a Nao robot, or a modified Roomba robot. The second study expanded on the first by including a Baxter robot as a coach and replicated the findings in a different sample population with a strict chain of command culture. Results from both studies showed that participants comply with the requests of a robot for up to 11 min. Compliance is less than to a human and embodiment and human-likeness on had weak effects on compliance. (shrink)

In this article I try to give an account of the meaning of phrases of the form ‘A causes B’ as they are most usefully used in everyday life and the applied sciences. This account covers narrower uses of such phrases, but we find that in our usage of the term, ‘A causes B’ neither entails nor is entailed by ‘A is always followed by B’. Logically necessary and sufficient conditions of this general term can be given, however, by reference (...) to particular cases of causation. The analysis of these is shown to be irreducibly counter-factual, i.e. such phrases are not definable in terms of statements describing those observable occurrences which constitute the relevant verificationary processes. Some objections to the analysis are considered, and it is tested against various examples. * Received 6.xii.65 1 This article is an expanded version of a paper read to the British Society for the Philosophy of Science at Bristol in September 1964. I have greatly benefited from criticisms and suggestions by members of the philosophy seminar of the University of Durham, especially Dr Doreen Bretherton, and also by Professor J. L. Mackie and the editor and referees of this Journal. (shrink)

This book sets out to identify the nature and implications of a proper understanding of pluralism in a original and illuminating way. Isaiah Berlin believed that a recognition of pluralism is vital to a free, decent and civilised society. By looking below at the often neglected foundations of Berlin’s celebrated account of moral pluralism, Lyons reveals the more philosophically profound aspects of his undogmatic and humanistic liberal vision. He achieves this by comparing Berlin’s core ideas with those of several (...) of his most distinguished philosophical contemporaries, an exercise which yields not only a deeper grasp of Berlin and several major twentieth-century thinkers, principally A. J. Ayer, J. L. Austin, P. F. Strawson, Bernard Williams and Quentin Skinner, but, more broadly, a keener appreciation of the power of history and philosophy to help us make sense of our predicament. (shrink)

In rounded terms and modem dress a theory of intentionality is a theory about how humans take in information via the senses and in the very process of taking it in understand it and, most often, make subsequent use of it in guiding human behaviour. The problem of intentionality in this century has been the problem of providing an adequate explanation of how a purely physical causal system, the brain, can both receive information and at the same time understand it, (...) that is, to put it even more briefly, how a brain can have semantic content. In these two articles, one in this issue of the journal and one in the next, I engage in a critical examination of the two most thoroughly canvassed approaches to the theory and problem of intentionality in philosophical psychology over the last hundred years. In the first article, entitled 'The modern reduction of intentionality, ' I examine the approach pioneered by Carnap and reaching its apotheosis in the work of Daniel Dennett. In the second article, entitled 'The return to representation, 'I examine the approach which can be traced back to the work of Noam Chomsky but which has been given its canonical treatment in the work of Jerry Fodor. (shrink)

L. Husson. XXIX' SEMAINE DE SYNTHÈSE DROIT PÉNAL ET CRIMINOLOGIE Exposé de M. Albert CHAVANNE Professeur à la Faculté de Droit et des Sciences économiques de Lyon Pour traiter des rapports entre droit pénal et criminologie ...

Can being, more specifically, black being, be thematized as visible from within the particularity of a given faith tradition, its practices and mode of being in the world? To narrow the question to one specific faith tradition, Christianity: Can blackness be visible within the visibility of the Christian factum---the incarnate God, Jesus of Nazareth? The first two chapters, drawing on the work of Albert J. Raboteau, Charles H. Long, and James H. Cone, show how African American religious scholarship, to varying (...) degrees, answers negatively, explicating the particularities of black being from a more fundamental genesis than the particularities of a given faith tradition itself. Various are the names of the fundament: Africanity, the religious consciousness, the ontological horizon of blackness, and so forth. Chapter 3 uncovers the Kantian philosophico-religious structure at work here, the very framework that spawned modernity's first thoroughgoing race theory. Chapters 4 and 5, drawing on Briton Hammon, Frederick Douglass, and Jarena Lee, offer a theological account of race. Black being is shown to be visible, iconically opaque, and, thus, theologically free as Christic and Paschal being. This theological transcription of being is coterminous with an emancipatory social arrangement of being: black being as 'Christified' is ecclesial being. This does not silence the historical cadences of black being; rather it dislodges the history of black being from the colonial gaze. ;The Proem on Irenaeus of Lyons , the Excursus on Gregory of Nyssa , and the Postlude on Maximos the Confessor indicate the Christology influencing this dissertation. Placing patristic Christology, as it culminates in Chalcedon I and refined in the neo-Chalcedonian debates, in conversation with the modern construction of race and being, I establish a vantage from which to criticize Immanuel Kant's supersessionistic Christianity, out of which emerged his race qua colonial theory. Yet, it also provides a vantage from which to articulate a non-supersessionistic Christianity of the embodiment of God in Jesus of Nazareth for the visibility of black being and, thus, speaks to a distressing aporia in African American religious studies and theology. (shrink)

One thousand stones, suitably arranged, might form a heap. If we remove a single stone from a heap of stones we still have a heap; at no point will the removal of just one stone make sufficient difference to transform a heap into something which is not a heap. But, if this is so, we still have a heap, even when we have removed the last stone composing our original structure. So runs the Sorites paradox. Similar paradoxes can be constructed (...) with any predicate which, like 'heap', displays borderline vagueness. Although I have frequently heard it said that there is no completely credible and satisfying dissolution of the paradoxes of the Sorites family; and although there is no possible approach to dissolution which has not been at least partially explored, philosophers continue glibly to use vague language as though it were entirely unproblematic. Since no argument has ever been produced which would justify our ignoring the para~doxes, this situation is extremely unsatisfactory. (shrink)

At least since the seminal work of the (US) National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research in the 1970s, a fundamental distinction between research and practice has underwritten both conceptual work in research ethics and regulations governing research involving human subjects. Notwithstanding its undoubted historical importance, I believe the distinction is problematic because it misrepresents clinical inquiry. In this essay, I aim to clarify the character of clinical inquiry by identifying crucial contextual constraints on (...) justification constitutive of clinical science. This analysis shows that, from an epistemological point of view, clinical research and clinical practice are not sharply distinct but intimately intertwined. This result is important in its own right—an enriched understanding of the epistemology of clinical research is valuable in and of itself. But this result is also important because it has profound implications for the ethics of human subjects research. (shrink)

Introduction: In The Netherlands, physicians have to be convinced that the patient suffers unbearably and hopelessly before granting a request for euthanasia. The extent to which general practitioners (GPs), consulted physicians and members of the euthanasia review committees judge this criterion similarly was evaluated. Methods: 300 GPs, 150 consultants and 27 members of review committees were sent a questionnaire with patient descriptions. Besides a “standard case” of a patient with physical suffering and limited life expectancy, the descriptions included cases in (...) which the request was mainly rooted in psychosocial or existential suffering, such as fear of future suffering or dependency. For each case, respondents were asked whether they recognised the case from their own practice and whether they considered the suffering to be unbearable. Results: The cases were recognisable for almost all respondents. For the “standard case” nearly all respondents were convinced that the patient suffered unbearably. For the other cases, GPs thought the suffering was unbearable less often (2–49%) than consultants (25–79%) and members of the euthanasia review committees (24–88%). In each group, the suffering of patients with early dementia and patients who were “tired of living” was least often considered to be unbearable. Conclusions: When non-physical aspects of suffering are central in a euthanasia request, there is variance between and within GPs, consultants and members of the euthanasia committees in their judgement of the patient’s suffering. Possible explanations could be differences in their roles in the decision-making process, differences in experience with evaluating a euthanasia request, or differences in views regarding the permissibility of euthanasia. (shrink)

If we overlook no consequences when we assess the act, and no relevant features when we generalize, can it matter whether we ask 'What would happen if everyone did the same?' instead of 'What would happen if this act were performed?'? David Lyons has argued that it cannot. Two examples are here articulated to show that it can. The first turns on the way consequences are identified and assessed and in particular on the treatment accorded 'threshold consequences'. The second (...) example turns on the way in which the 'social context' of the act (what others would be doing) is taken into account in the generalization. Also included is a formal theory of conditionals from which implications are drawn for utilitarianism and with which I attempt to dispel certain doubts concerning cases employed in my arguments. (shrink)

The Man of Wiles in Popular Arabic Literature: A Study of a Medieval Arab Hero. By Malcolm C. Lyons. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012. Pp. x + 254. $105.

The aim of this essay is to give a high-level overview of Irenaeus’s beatific vision, and to suggest that for him, the beatific vision has a temporal dimension (now and future) and a dimension of degree (lesser now, greater in the future). His beatific vision is witnessed as it intersects with at least four main ideas in his writing—the Trinity, anthropology, resurrection, and his eschatology. Irenaeus famously held that ‘the glory of God is living man, and the life of man (...) is the vision of God’ (AH 4.20.7), which speaks to the reality of seeing God in the present, but he could also look forward in anticipation to beholding the face of God in the resurrected body in the new creation. What made the latter possible is the gradual beholding of God in the present that makes one prepared to see God’s glory in the future. Additionally, the visio Dei is Trinitarian. We behold God in Christ, since God the Father is invisible, and it is the Holy Spirit who prepares us incrementally to see God. (shrink)