Phenomenology is the general study of the structure of experience, from thought and perception, to self-consciousness, bodily-awareness, and emotion. It is both a fundamental area of philosophy and a major methodological approach within the human sciences. Experiencing Phenomenology is an outstanding introduction to phenomenology. Approaching fundamental phenomenological questions from a critical, systematic perspective whilst paying careful attention to classic phenomenological texts, the book possesses a clarity and breadth that will be welcomed by students coming to the subject for the first (...) time. Accessibly written, each chapter relates classic phenomenological discussions to contemporary issues and debates in philosophy. The following key topics are introduced and explained: the methodological foundations of phenomenology intentionality as the ‘mark of the mental’ and the problem of non-existent objects perceptual experience, including our awareness of things, properties, and events the experience of body, self, and others imaginative and emotional experience detailed discussions of classical phenomenological texts, including: Brentano's _Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint _ Husserl's _Logical Investigations_, _Cartesian Meditations, _and On_ the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time _ Heidegger’s _History of The Concept of Time,_ and _Being and Time _ Stein's _On the Problem of Empathy _ Sartre's _Transcendence of the Ego_, _Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions,_ and _The Imaginary _ Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception. Also included is a glossary of key terms and suggestions for further reading, making this book an ideal starting point for anyone new to the study of phenomenology, not only in Philosophy but related disciplines such as Psychology and Sociology. (shrink)

In the Gorgias, Plato has Polus ask Socrates if he would rather suffer injustice than perform it. Socrates’ response is justly famous, affirming a view that Polus himself finds incredible, and one that even contemporary readers find difficult to credit: “for my part, I would prefer neither, but if it had to be one or the other, I would choose to suffer rather than do what is unjust”. In this paper, we take up the part of Socrates’ response that Polus (...) never engages and that has also been completely neglected by contemporary scholars, namely, Socrates’ explicit aversion to being a victim of injustice. We show that this same aversion—though one not nearly as strong as his aversion to doing injustice—appears in several texts, and we argue that the best explanation of such an aversion derives from two important features of Socratic philosophy, both of which have only recently been recognized in Socratic scholarship: his virtue intellectualism, which conceives of virtue as a kind of craft that can be achieved in different degrees, and his conception of moral psychology, which allows for non-rational influences on how we perform the cognitive functions required for proper deliberation. (shrink)

Boarding school is a major educational option for many students (e.g., students living in remote areas, or whose parents are working interstate or overseas, etc.). This study explored the motivation, engagement, and achievement of boarding and day students who are educated in the same classrooms and receive the same syllabus and instruction from the same teachers (thus a powerful research design to enable unique comparisons). Among 2,803 students (boardingn= 481; dayn= 2,322) from 6 Australian high schools and controlling for background (...) attributes and personality, we found predominant parity between boarding and day students in their motivation, engagement, and achievement. We also found that classroom-average motivation, engagement, and achievement was not significantly affected by the number of boarders (relative to day students) in the classroom. In addition, the effects of boarding were generally not moderated by students’ background or personality attributes. We conclude that boarders have academic opportunities and outcomes that are comparable to their day student counterparts. Implications for students, teachers, and parents are discussed. (shrink)

The influence of physician judgment on the disclosure, competency, understanding, voluntariness, and decision aspects of informed consent for bone marrow transplantation are described. Ethical conflicts which arise from the amount and complexity of the information to be disclosed and from the barriers of limited time, patient anxiety and lack of prior relationship between patient and physician are discussed. The role of the referring physician in the decision-making is considered. Special ethical issues which arise with use of healthy related bone marrow (...) donors are discussed, as is the physician's discretion in raising questions of competency. It is concluded that in this setting, regardless of the theoretical goals of the physician, patients appear to utilize informed consent discussions to assess their capacity to trust the physician rather than as a time to weigh the large amount of relevant data. The conscientious physician best serves the patient with recommendation of the best medical alternative rather than with attempts to remain neutral. (shrink)

This study examines cheating behaviors among 422 business students at two public Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business-accredited business schools. Specifically, we examined the simultaneous influence of attitudinal characteristics and motivational factors on reported prior cheating behavior, the tendency to neutralize cheating behaviors, and likelihood of future cheating. In addition, we examined the impact of in-class deterrents on neutralization of cheating behaviors and the likelihood of future cheating. We also directly tested potential mediating effects of neutralization on cheating behavior. (...) Using structural equations modeling procedures, we conducted an assessment of the validity of a modified version of the K. J. Smith, Davy, Rosenberg, and Haight model of cheating behavior and its antecedents. The modified model included motivation as a potential predictor of cheating behavior. Results supported the differentiation of the theoretical constructs within the specified process model. Furthermore, tests of the aforementioned theoretical model indicated a significant positive relation between extrinsic motivation and prior cheating and a significant negative relation between both intrinsic motivation and academic performance, and prior cheating. Finally, prior cheating had a significant positive relation, whereas deterrents had a significant negative relation to likelihood of future cheating. (shrink)

This is a philosophical and historical investigation of the role of inconsistent representations of the same scientific phenomenon. The logical difficulties associated with the simultaneous application of inconsistent models are discussed. Internally inconsistent scientific proposals are characterized as structures whose application is necessarily tied to the confirming evidence that each of its components enjoys and to a vision of the general form of the theory that will resolve the inconsistency. Einstein's derivation of the black body radiation law is used as (...) an example application of such a strategy and is contrasted with planck's derivation. (shrink)

I defend a perceptual account of face-to-face mindreading. I begin by proposing a phenomenological constraint on our visual awareness of others' emotional expressions. I argue that to meet this constraint we require a distinction between the basic and non-basic ways people, and other things, look. I offer and defend just such an account.

Joel Smith on Husserl and the puzzling experience of time.

I present a perceptual account of other minds that combines a Husserlian insight about perceptual experience with a functionalist account of mental properties.

This unique book brings together international scholars from around the globe to examine how different feminist theories are being used in early childhood research, policy and pedagogy. The array of feminist discourses captured by the authors offer contextualised possibilities for disrupting dominant patriarchal beliefs and producing change. The authors address and challenge how early childhood experiences, institutions and practices produce gendered effects across and within diverse contexts and demonstrate how feminism(s) in action can be used to reconceptualise research methods, government (...) policy, children's learning, teaching practice and educational resources. In this way, the book contributes to creating new knowledge connections and community alliances in the global effort to end gender-based inequalities across local and global communities. (shrink)

Achieving space domain awareness requires the identification, characterization, and tracking of space objects. Storing and leveraging associated space object data for purposes such as hostile threat assessment, object identification, and collision prediction and avoidance present further challenges. Space objects are characterized according to a variety of parameters including their identifiers, design specifications, components, subsystems, capabilities, vulnerabilities, origins, missions, orbital elements, patterns of life, processes, operational statuses, and associated persons, organizations, or nations. The Space Object Ontology provides a consensus-based realist framework (...) for formulating such characterizations in a computable fashion. Space object data are aligned with classes and relations in the Space Object Ontology and stored in a dynamically updated Resource Description Framework triple store, which can be queried to support space domain awareness and the needs of spacecraft operators. This paper presents the core of the Space Object Ontology, discusses its advantages over other approaches to space object classification, and demonstrates its ability to combine diverse sets of data from multiple sources within an expandable framework. Finally, we show how the ontology provides benefits for enhancing and maintaining longterm space domain awareness. (shrink)

What inductive biases must be incorporated into multi-agent artificial intelligence models to get them to capture high-fidelity imitation? We think very little is needed. In the right environments, both instrumental- and ritual-stance imitation can emerge from generic learning mechanisms operating on non-deliberative decision architectures. In this view, imitation emerges from trial-and-error learning and does not require explicit deliberation.

Abstract: Shinran (1173-1263), the founder of the Jōdoshinshū of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism, and Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), the Danish father of Christian existentialism, belong to very different eras, cultures, and religious traditions. Yet there are striking similarities between their religious philosophies, especially in how both offer theistic views emphasising faith and grace that see the person as radically insufficient to attain complete self-transformation. Both claim that the human person is so radically insufficient that no one can attain Buddhist enlightenment or (...) Christian salvation through his or her own power, but only through divine power. I will argue against some commentators that although the Deity accepts and transforms this insufficiency, even the power of the Deity does not eradicate human insufficiency in this life for the person of faith. I will also argue that Shinran and Kierkegaard differ significantly about the role of human freedom in faith, and that this difference expresses the central difference between Mahāyāna Buddhism and Christianity regarding the relationship between the person and the Deity. (shrink)

In the paper, which pretends to be a program manifesto, its authors justify a necessity of the new theoretical approach to culture which they call a “strong program” in sociology of culture. While the existing sociological approaches to culture bear a reductionist character, the “strong program” treats culture in terms of its autonomy. After a general review of the sociological conceptions of culture authors analyze the most significant approaches within the “weak program.” In the core section of the paper they (...) discuss the required steps that will make a “strong program” possible on the grounds of synthesis of structuralism and hermeneutics. (shrink)

In its central use “phenomenology” names a movement in twentieth century philosophy. A second use of “phenomenology” common in contemporary philosophy names a property of some mental states, the property they have if and only if there is something it is like to be in them. Thus, it is sometimes said that emotional states have a phenomenology while belief states do not. For example, while there is something it is like to be angry, there is nothing it is like to (...) believe that Paris is in France. Although the two uses of “phenomenology” are related, it is the first which is the current topic. Accordingly, “phenomenological” refers to a way of doing philosophy that is more or less closely related to the corresponding movement. Phenomenology utilizes a distinctive method to study the structural features of experience and of things as experienced. It is primarily a descriptive discipline and is undertaken in a way that is largely independent of scientific, including causal, explanations and accounts of the nature of experience. Topics discussed within the phenomenological tradition include the nature of intentionality, perception, time-consciousness, self-consciousness, awareness of the body and consciousness of others. Phenomenology is to be distinguished from phenomenalism, a position in epistemology which implies that all statements about physical objects are synonymous with statements about persons having certain sensations or sense-data. George Berkeley was a phenomenalist but not a phenomenologist. -/- Although elements of the twentieth century phenomenological movement can be found in earlier philosophers—such as David Hume, Immanuel Kant and Franz Brentano—phenomenology as a philosophical movement really began with the work of Edmund Husserl. Following Husserl, phenomenology was adapted, broadened and extended by, amongst others, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. Phenomenology has, at one time or another, been aligned with Kantian and post-Kantian transcendental philosophy, existentialism and the philosophy of mind and psychology. -/- This article introduces some of the central aspects of the phenomenological method and also concrete phenomenological analyses of some of the topics that have greatly exercised phenomenologists. (shrink)

ObjectiveCo-morbid insomnia and sleep apnea is a common and debilitating condition that is more difficult to treat compared to insomnia or sleep apnea-alone. Emerging evidence suggests that cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is effective in patients with COMISA, however, those with more severe sleep apnea and evidence of greater objective sleep disturbance may be less responsive to CBTi. Polysomnographic sleep study data has been used to predict treatment response to CBTi in patients with insomnia-alone, but not in patients with COMISA. (...) We used randomized controlled trial data to investigate polysomnographic predictors of insomnia improvement following CBTi, versus control in participants with COMISA.MethodsOne hundred and forty five participants with insomnia and sleep apnea [apnea-hypopnea index ≥ 15] were randomized to CBTi or no-treatment control. Mixed models were used to investigate the effect of pre-treatment AHI, sleep duration, and other traditional, and novel [quantitative electroencephalography ] polysomnographic predictors of between-group changes in Insomnia Severity Index scores from pre-treatment to post-treatment.ResultsCompared to control, CBTi was associated with greater ISI improvement among participants with; higher AHI, less wake after sleep onset, and less N3 sleep. No quantitative electroencephalographic, or other traditional polysomnographic variables predicted between-group ISI change.DiscussionAmong participants with COMISA, higher OSA severity predicted a greater treatment-response to CBTi, versus control. People with COMISA should be treated with CBTi, which is effective even in the presence of severe OSA and objective sleep disturbance. (shrink)

We give a comparison inequality that allows one to estimate the tail probabilities of sums of independent Banach space valued random variables in terms of those of independent identically distributed random variables. More precisely, let X1, . . . , Xn be independent Banach-valued random variables. Let I be a random variable independent of X1, . . . , Xn and uniformly distributed over {1, . . . , n}. Put ˜.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On Reviewing: A Response to Mary Ann StankiewiczRalph A. Smith, Professor EmeritusI very much appreciate the positive comments made by Mary Ann Stankiewicz in her review published in Studies in Art Education of my Readings in Discipline-Based Art Education: A Literature of Educational Reform.1 I was gratified to read that she believes the volume is a comprehensive and valuable guide that all art educators should own as a (...) reference source for the intellectual history of American art education in the late-twentieth century. Stankiewicz further notes my steadfastness in holding to a vision ofaesthetic education that is firmly rooted in the humanities and my forthrightness in acknowledging that a different choice of selections might well convey a somewhat different picture of Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE). Between encomia, however, Stankiewicz raises questions about my editorial politics (that is, opportunities editors have to make selections they think are important) and my views about art education.The format of Stankiewicz's review was patterned after an essay in the volume by Frances Schoonmaker who discusses the professional preparation of teachers in terms of autobiography, school contexts, and scholarship. Accordingly, Stankiewicz recalls in some detail her own extensive participation in the Getty's educational venture in art education. And instead of referring to the Introduction's discussion of historical antecedents of DBAE she provides her own account of events that were contemporaneous with Getty's period of operation and refers to some currents of contemporary thinking. In other words, she does not give the kind of space to the book's contents that reviewers usually do.2 This prompted me to recall some material from the book's Introduction, which is followed by a sketch of the DBAE literature project that furnished the impetus for the volume and rejoinders to some of Stankiewicz's concerns.DBAE RememberedThe Getty Center for Education in the Arts (later renamed the Getty Education Institute for the Arts and eventually discontinued) flourished mainly in the 1980s and 1990s and proceeded under the banner of DBAE. The Getty's notion of DBAE supported a major trend that had been growing in the field since the mid-1950s. In this respect the Getty initiative was neither novel nor revolutionary. Yet by correcting an error of certain reform movements, namely those whose tendency was to bypass professionals in the field, it did constitute a significant venture. Getty officers perceived the field to be [End Page 93] moving in the direction of strengthening the content of art education with additional content that was believed requisite for an intelligent and sensitive engagement with works of art. In effect the Getty position argued that a well-developed sense of art is composed not just of the rudiments of artistic creation art but also those of a number of other relevant disciplines, for example the interrelated disciplines of art making, art history, art criticism, and aesthetics (usually understood as the philosophy of art). It was acknowledged that these were not the only disciplines relevant to art education, but they were considered to be basic. Nor was it believed that these disciplines should be taught as separate subjects; rather, they were meant to suggest content and useful modes of inquiry. As Stankiewicz notes, DBAE endorsed both the substantive and procedural dimensions of the cognitive revolution that was occurring in thinking about mind and learning. Indeed, mind building emerged as one of the major themes in the theory underlying the Getty approach.3Not surprisingly, the Getty approach had its critics. As pointed out in my "Afterthoughts,"the Getty initiative was contemporaneous with the increasing politicization of cultural and educational life.4 The critical literature produced in this climate — subscribing variously to postmodernism, multiculturalism, feminism, cultural studies, social reconstructionism, and deconstruction — was often by turns extreme, dense, and intimidating. It further tended to be skeptical of Western cultural values and traditions. I think it is fair to say that many in the field of art education were ill prepared to digest these writings or to be alert to some of their potential negative consequences. I mention just a few of these.For example, although developing an appreciation for hitherto unfamiliar cultures is... (shrink)

Inconsistent representations of the world have in fact played and should play a role in scientific inquiry. However, it would seem that logical analysis of such representations is blocked by the explosive nature of deductive inference from inconsistent premisses. "Paraconsistent logics" have been suggested as the proper way to remove this impediment and to make explication of the logic of inconsistent scientific theories possible. I argue that installing paraconsistent logic as the underlying logic for scientific inquiry is neither a necessary (...) nor a sufficient condition for giving a philosophical alternative, I suggest that identification of heuristic strategies, based on the network of confirming evidence for inconsistent proposals for reasoning from such proposals to their consistent replacements is the proper way to explicate their function in science. (shrink)

A self-ascription is a thought or sentence in which a predicate is self-consciously ascribed to oneself. Self-ascriptions are best expressed using the first-person pronoun. Mental self-ascriptions are ascriptions to oneself of mental predicates (predicates that designate mental properties), non-mental self-ascriptions are ascriptions to oneself of non-mental predicates (predicates that designate non-mental properties). It is often claimed that there is a range of self-ascriptions that are immune to error through misidentification relative to the first-person pronoun (IEM for short). What this means, (...) and exactly which self-ascriptions are properly classed as IEM, is a topic hotly disputed. Some claim that only mental self-ascriptions are IEM, others claim that some non-mental self-ascriptions are IEM. Before this question can be decided, it needs to be judged exactly what it means to say that a self-ascription is IEM. And here we stumble across the fact that there are, at least, two non-equivalent ways of defining the phenomenon1. I will be claiming that one of these definitions should be rejected. (shrink)

I offer an account of the ontology of emotions and their expressions, drawing some morals for the view that we can perceive others' emotions in virtue of seeing their expressions.

Common wisdom tells us that we have five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. These senses provide us with a means of gaining information concerning objects in the world around us, including our own bodies. But in addition to these five senses, each of us is aware of our own body in way in which we are aware of no other thing. These ways include our awareness of the position, orientation, movement, and size of our limbs (proprioception and kinaesthesia), (...) our sense of balance, and our awareness of bodily sensations such as pains, tickles, and sensations of pressure or temperature. We can group these together under the title. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 39.2 (2005) 97-103 [Access article in PDF] MoMA as Educator: The Legacy of Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Ralph A. Smith Professor Emeritus University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Alfred H. Barr, Jr. and the Intellectual Origins of the Museum of Modern Art by Sybil Gordon Kantor. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2002, xxv, 472 pp., $39.95. ISBN 0-262-11258-2 Sybil Kantor's history of the intellectual origins (...) of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an engaging account of Alfred Barr, Jr.'s, pivotal role in acquainting an American audience with the modernist movement in art that had developed in Europe and the Soviet Union in the first part of the twentieth century. Scrupulously documented, Kantor's narrative relies heavily on interviews with Barr's contemporaries, his publications, and his extensive correspondence. She also limns portraits of major figures who either influenced his ideas or were instrumental in establishing MoMA. Although the book is very informative about modern art, according to its author it is not intended to be strictly a history of that art. Rather, it is devoted to Barr's early development, his personal characteristics, his attitude toward the cultural and political climate of the times, his definitions of modernism and formalism, and finally, his legacy.Kantor traces Barr's career through the decade of the 1920s, which culminated in his being named the first director of MoMA in 1929; the expansive years of the 1930s and 1940s when, as Kantor puts it, Barr and the museum were at full throttle; and the later years when Barr was relieved of his director's responsibilities to allow him to spend more time on writing and the mounting of exhibitions. He retired from the museum in 1967, began to show signs of ill health in the mid-1970s, and died at the age of 79 in 1981. The Early Years Barr began his studies in the history of art at Princeton where he took courses with Frank Jewett Mather, who taught about modern art, and with Charles Rufus Morey, a distinguished medievalist whose teaching ranged beyond the architecture and sculpture of the Middle Ages to the other arts of that era. Morey's example of comprehensiveness would later stimulate Barr to think along similar lines about modern art and the organization of MoMA. At Harvard's graduate school Barr learned the skills of connoisseurship and museum management from Paul Sachs whose students went on to become directors of major museums across America. Sachs also encouraged Barr's interest in modern art and provided him with numerous letters of [End Page 97] introduction to scholars and museum directors — and occasionally withfunds for his travels.1 Lincoln Kirstein was a close friend, art critic, and earlyally, while Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Walter Gropius, and Philip Johnson significantly affected Barr's understanding of architecture. A large cast of artists, patrons, collectors, writers, trustees, and editors of "little magazines"(so-called because of their relatively small numbers of readers) also enter the scene and play various roles. A few words are in order about Barr himself who, Kantor says, exhibited more rebelliousness, a larger vision, and greater discipline than most of those around him. Barr the Man Kantor portrays a mind and sensibility possessed of exceptional discernment for the new, the difficult, and the worthwhile in the art of the early twentieth century. Barr's feeling for order, organization, and clarity of relations; his commitment to perfection, freedom, and truth; and his faith in the capacity of modern art to overcome prejudices and improve the taste of Americans are not merely reflections of the disciplinary habits inculcated by Barr's Presbyterian upbringing. They also reveal the classical tastes acquired through his art-historical studies and echo the temper of the age.The time — the 1920s through the 1940s — valued both the rationalism of science with its methods of problem solving and the insights of psychoanalysis with its probing of the irrational. Belief in the inevitable progress promised by advances in technology was, however... (shrink)

Achieving space situational awareness requires, at a minimum, the identification, characterization, and tracking of space objects. Leveraging the resultant space object data for purposes such as hostile threat assessment, object identification, and conjunction assessment presents major challenges. This is in part because in characterizing space objects we reference a variety of identifiers, components, subsystems, capabilities, vulnerabilities, origins, missions, orbital elements, patterns of life, operational processes, operational statuses, and so forth, which tend to be defined in highly heterogeneous and sometimes inconsistent (...) ways. The Space Domain Ontologies are designed to provide a consensus-based realist framework for formulating such characterizations in a way that is both consistent and computable. Space object data are aligned with classes and relations in a suite of ontologies built around the existing Space Object Ontology. They are stored in a dynamically updated Resource Description Framework triple store, which can be queried to support space situational awareness and the needs of spacecraft operators and analysts. This paper provides an overview of the Space Domain Ontologies and their development and use. It presents the motivation for and advantages of the Space Domain Ontologies, including the benefits they provide for enhancing and maintaining long-term space situational awareness. (shrink)