Thirty years ago, grounded cognition had roots in philosophy, perception, cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, cognitive psychology, and cognitive neuropsychology. During the next 20 years, grounded cognition continued developing in these areas, and it also took new forms in robotics, cognitive ecology, cognitive neuroscience, and developmental psychology. In the past 10 years, research on grounded cognition has grown rapidly, especially in cognitive neuroscience, social neuroscience, cognitive psychology, social psychology, and developmental psychology. Currently, grounded cognition appears to be achieving increased acceptance throughout cognitive (...) science, shifting from relatively minor status to increasing importance. Nevertheless, researchers wonder whether grounded mechanisms lie at the heart of the cognitive system or are peripheral to classic symbolic mechanisms. Although grounded cognition is currently dominated by demonstration experiments in the absence of well-developed theories, the area is likely to become increasingly theory driven over the next 30 years. Another likely development is the increased incorporation of grounding mechanisms into cognitive architectures and into accounts of classic cognitive phenomena. As this incorporation occurs, much functionality of these architectures and phenomena is likely to remain, along with many original mechanisms. Future theories of grounded cognition are likely to be heavily influenced by both cognitive neuroscience and social neuroscience, and also by developmental science and robotics. Aspects from the three major perspectives in cognitive science—classic symbolic architectures, statistical/dynamical systems, and grounded cognition—will probably be integrated increasingly in future theories, each capturing indispensable aspects of intelligence. (shrink)

The practice of HIV‐infected physicians who perform seriously invasive procedures calls for professional guidance to protect patient safety and the privacy of infected physicians.

Listening to subject’s commentaries can be a useful spur to novel scientific departures, as in studies of blindsight. Recently further testing has been possible with subject DB, who was a blindsight patient tested intensively over a period of 10 years and who was the subject of the book, . Essentially his original capacity is the same or somewhat more sensitive. Some further types of discriminations have now been tested that were not possible in the original study. But a new feature (...) was discovered, namely that he describes conscious after-images of a wide range of inducing stimuli of which he is unconscious. The properties of the after-images are briefly described, such as their occurrence following unseen colour patches, luminance changes, shape, spatial frequency, their long durations, showing inter-ocular transfer, as well as their conforming to Emmert’s Law. Various approaches are discussed towards finding the source of their generation, such as the use of after-images of colour mixes of separate inputs to the two eyes . They are also discussed in terms of after-images in normal subjects that are generated by imagination. The discovery offers a rare potential opportunity to compare the brain activity associated with both the conscious and unconscious attributes of the precisely the same stimuli in the same locus in the same subject. (shrink)

In 1991, the CDC recommended that health care workers (HCWs) infectedwith HIV or HBV (HbeAg positive) should be reviewed by an expert paneland should inform patients of their serologic status before engaging inexposure-prone procedures. The CDC, in light of the existing scientificuncertainty about the risk of transmission, issued cautiousrecommendations. However, considerable evidence has emerged since 1991suggesting that we should reform national policy. The data demonstratesthat risks of transmission of infection in the health care setting areexceedingly low. Current policy, moreover, does (...) not improve patientsafety. At the same time, implementation of current national policy atthe local level poses significant human rights burdens on HCWs.Consequently, national policy should be changed to ensure patient safetywhile protecting the human rights of HCWs. This article proposes a newnational policy, including: (1) a program to prevent bloodborne pathogentransmission; (2) a responsibility placed on infected HCWs to promotetheir own health and well-being and to assure patient safety; (3) adiscontinuation of expert review panels and special restrictions forexposure-prone procedures; (4) a discontinuation of mandatorydisclosure of a HCW's inflection status; and (5) the imposition ofpractice restrictions if a HCW is unable to practice safely because of aphysical or mental impairment or failure to follow careful infectioncontrol techniques. A new national policy, focused on management of theworkplace environment and injury prevention, would achieve high levelsof patient safety without discrimination and invasion of privacy. (shrink)

I discuss the interpretation of a recent experiment showing quantum interference in time. It is pointed out that the standard nonrelativistic quantum theory does not have the property of coherence in time, and hence cannot account for the results found. Therefore, this experiment has fundamental importance beyond the technical advances it represents. Some theoretical structures which consider the time as an observable, and thus could, in principle, have the required coherence in time, are discussed briefly, and the application of Floquet (...) theory and the manifestly covariant quantum theory of Stueckelberg are treated in some detail. In particular, the latter is shown to account for the results in a simple and consistent way. (shrink)

I propose that primary conscious awareness arises from synchronized activity in dendrites of neurons in dorsal thalamic nuclei, mediated particularly by inhibitory interactions with thalamic reticular neurons. In support, I offer four evidential pillars: consciousness is restricted to the results of cortical computations; thalamus is the common locus of action of brain injury in vegetative state and of general anesthetics; the anatomy and physiology of the thalamus imply a central role in consciousness; neural synchronization is a neural correlate of consciousness.

This book is comprised of essays previously published in Philosophy & Public Affairs and also an extended excerpt from Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars.

The world is complex, dynamic, multidimensional; the paper is static, flat. How are we to represent the rich visual world of experience and measurement on mere flatland?

This two-volume collection of essays brings together major contemporary theoretical works on freedom of speech. Volume I, begins with a theoretical overview of freedom of speech and then turns to the topics of what justifies freedom of speech and what kinds of acts raise free speech concerns. Volume II, examines the distinctions among content regulations and between content and content-neutral regulations. It also analyses the concept of the public forum, inciting and hateful speech and lastly the tension between the subsidizing (...) activities of the affirmative state and the negative liberty of freedom of speech. (shrink)

In this chapter, I embrace Jeff Goldsworthy’s conclusion that Ronald Dworkin was an originalist regarding the meaning of canonical legal texts. I briefly examine the evidence for that claim, and I ask how its truth affects Dworkin’s fit-acceptability account of the nature of law. In a brief digression, I present a broad-brush view of the jurisprudential debate between legal positivists and natural lawyers. I then explain why the natural law view must fail and why legal positivists must make an unpalatable (...) choice between a gunman model and a model based on deception. Finally, I situate and explain Dworkin’s third-way jurisprudence and its fatal flaws. I conclude by explaining how devastating Dworkin’s originalism is for his third-way jurisprudential view that law consists of those principles that best justify the community’s past and present coercive political decisions. (shrink)

Codified ethics for journalists in Australia has a long history, almost as long as that in the United States. Unlike the United States, however, Australia has a unified code of ethics, that of the Australian Journalists' Association, which is generally accepted by the whole industry, both print and broadcast. But over the last 20 years, media consumers have shown they have a poor and declining view of the ethics of Australian journalists, despite the checks and balances that exist. Recent signs, (...) both from within and outside Australia, indicate growing dissatisfaction with the media, suggesting Australian journalists can expect increasing criticism of their behavior and mounting pressure on them to be more accountable. (shrink)

In order to understand the animal rights movement as it exists today in American society, it is necessary to explore the ways in which the beliefs of those who support the movement differ from the beliefs of their adversaries. Societal views generally determine the perceived differences and similarities between people and animals, and the issues surrounding these differences are fundamental to the animal rights controversy.

Translation of: Talkhaios kitaab al-Akhlaaq, book 4.

What, exactly, is knowledge of music? And what does it tell us about humanistic knowledge in general? _The Thought of Music_ grapples directly with these fundamental questions—questions especially compelling at a time when humanistic knowledge is enmeshed in debates about its character and future. In this third volume in a trilogy on musical understanding that includes _Interpreting Music_ and _Expression and Truth_, Lawrence Kramer seeks answers in both thought _about_ music and thought _in_ music—thinking in tones. He skillfully assesses (...) musical scholarship in the aftermath of critical musicology and musical hermeneutics and in view of more recent concerns with embodiment, affect, and performance. This authoritative and timely work challenges the prevailing conceptions of every topic it addresses: language, context, and culture; pleasure and performance; and, through music, the foundations of understanding in the humanities. The publisher gratefully acknowledges the Joseph Kerman Endowment of the American Musicological Society, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. (shrink)

This is a short postscript to the Public Health Ethics special issue on the legal determinants of health. We reflect briefly on emerging responses to COVID-19, and raise important questions of ethics and law that must be addressed; including through the lens of legal determinants, and with critical attention to what it means to protect health with justice.

A few years ago a battered infant was admitted to a California hospital. After a period of observation and testing, the physicians concluded that the infant had been beaten so badly that his brain was almost completely destroyed, leaving him permanently unconscious. The hospital had just adopted a policy specifying that life-sustaining treatment for permanent unconsciousness was futile and, therefore, not indicated. According to this policy, after suitable subspecialty consultations and deliberations, including efforts to gain parental agreement and documentation of (...) unanimous ethics committee support, the patient's physician had the authority to discontinue life-sustaining treatment. The infant's physician wished to do this. The mother, however, who was the prime battery suspect, insisted that the baby be kept alive. (shrink)

From time to time, the idea that enduring things can change has been challenged. The latest challenge has come in the form of what David Lewis has called a “decisive objection”, which claims to deduce a contradiction from the idea that enduring things change with respect to their temporary intrinsics, when that idea is combined with eternalism. It is my aim in this paper to explain why I think that no argument has yet appeared that deduces a contradiction from a (...) combination of eternalism and the idea that enduring things change with respect to their temporary intrinsics, except ones that do so by committing scope fallacies. (shrink)

Any thoughtful reading of Levinas must grapple with what is implied by his notion that the Other is “higher” than the self — that the Other is “one for whom I can do all and to whom I owe all”? (EI 89). At least two evident issues arise when we wonder what it would mean to live with and by this notion. Without fail, newcomers to Levinas’s ideas raise these two issues. The first centers on the question: What is my (...) responsibility to strangers? That is, if I “owe all” to a stranger in need to the point where his or her welfare and life come before mine, how can I possibly address the interests of my loved ones, friends, colleagues, and fellow citizens, not to mention my own needs? Moreover, is Levinas suggesting that we have a moral duty to be saints? The second issue revolves around the question: What is the responsibility of a victim toward her persecutor? This can easily lead to asking, is Levinas implying that a Jew being herded off to Auschwitz “owes everything” tohis Nazi captor? Also, what can it mean for a victim to encounter the face of a rapist and to “substitute” herself for him? And should she? I shall approach these persistent issues by first explaining how Levinas grounds his claims that the face-to-face-relationship is asymmetrical and that “I am responsible for the Other, without waiting for reciprocity, were I to die for it” (EI 98). (shrink)

The standard allocative efficiency criteria used by economists (Pareto efficiency and Kaldor-Hicks efficiency) are fundamentally unable to rank a slave-labor system against a free-labor system. Given either set of initial property rights assignments the market can reach (or fail to reach) allocative efficiency (that is, allocate resources to their highest-valued uses), but welfare economics provides no meta-framework for ranking initial assignments. This finding underscores the limits to the usefulness of efficiency criteria: they cannot settle all questions, and unfortunately are least (...) decisive just where the stakes are greatest (namely, where wealth effects of alternative assignments are greatest). Explicitly ethical criteria are needed to make the ranking. Key Words: Pareto efficiency • Kaldor-Hicks efficiency • property rights • welfare economics. (shrink)