ABSTRACTEvaluative conditioning procedures change people’s evaluations of stimuli that are paired with pleasant or unpleasant items. To test whether influence awareness allows people to resist such...

Starting from an unorthodox account of conceptual idealism as represented (going backwards historically) by Thomas Hofweber, Nicholas Rescher and Robin George Collingwood (mainly with regard to its potential use in historical understanding), this short study attempts to couple it with the important cognitive finding that emotions inform judgment and regulate thought.1 In my search for a bridge between the cognitive and emotional contents of conceptual understanding, LBT appears to offer the long sought after interfacing, through its take on emotional and (...) behavioral reasoning. Although this study is in its early stages, the idea can gain pace and produce evidence that LBT is not only a beneficiary of academic achievements but also an important provider of solutions to crucial philosophical puzzles such as the nature of understanding in epistemology of history. (shrink)

Information was a frequently used concept in many fields of investigation. However, this concept is still not really understood, when it is referred for instance to consciousness and its informational structure. In this paper it is followed the concept of information from philosophical to physics perspective, showing especially how this concept could be extended to matter in general and to the living in particular, as a result of the intimate interaction between matter and information, the human body appearing as a (...) bipolar informed-matter structure. It is detailed on this way how this concept could be referred to consciousness, and an informational modeling of consciousness as an informational system of the human body is presented. Based on the anatomic architecture of the organism and on the inference of the specific information concepts, it is shown that the informational system of the human body could be described by seven informational subsystems, which are reflected in consciousness as corresponding cognitive centers. These results are able to explain the main properties of consciousness, both the cognitive and extra-cognitive properties of the mind, like that observed during the near-death experiences and other similar phenomena. Moreover, the results of such a modeling are compared with the existing empirical concepts and models on the energetic architecture of the organism, showing their relevance for the understanding of consciousness. (shrink)

I first attempt a taxonomy of meditation in traditional Indian Buddhism. Based on the main psychological or somatic function at which the meditative effort is directed, the following classes can be distinguished: (1) emotion-centered meditation (coinciding with the traditional samatha approach); (2) consciousness-centered meditation (with two subclasses: consciousness reduction/elimination and ideation obliteration); (3) reflection-centered meditation (with two subtypes: morality-directed reflection and reality-directed observation, the latter corresponding to the vipassanā method); (4) visualization-centered meditation; and (5) physiology-centered meditation. In the second part (...) of the essay I tackle the problem of the epistemic validity and happiness-engendering value of Buddhist meditation. In my highly conjectural view, the claim that meditation represents an infallible tool for realizing the (Supreme) Truth as well as a universally valid method for attaining the highest forms of happiness is largely based on the crēdō effect, that is, a placebolike process. I do not deny that meditation may have some positive effects on mental and physical health or that its practice may bring changes to the mind. Meditation may be a valuable alternative approach in life and clinical treatment, but it is far from being a must or a panacea. (shrink)

This distance biographical will follow however one via little various from that in way immediate can to be meant like biography, because it will try to avoidthe fall in that Nietzsche calls “error of the biographers” and that she will try not to stop itself on the personal identifying data and neither to inquire around to the psychological configuration of the author, but will more rather follow the thread of the thought expressed in its works. The written ones of Nietzsche, (...) as we have already pointed out, are from meaning like integer, also that in aphoristic shape that represent a fragmentary thought.The living as it operates has been taken in consideration, at first, from the fact that the works rise from the work that is the living, which constitute the privileged field of the creation of the artist hour this living have been looked at to approach the phenomenon of the tragedy. The scope of the art is to transform all that is bad, the painful, terrible and incommodious things. (shrink)

Descartes' place in history, by L. J. Lafleur.--A central ambiguity in Descartes, by S. Rosen.--Doubt, common sense and affirmation in Descartes and Hume, by H. J. Allen.--Some remarks on logic and the cogito, by R. N. Beck.--The cogito, an ambiguous performance, by J. B. Wilbur.--The modalities of Descartes' proofs for the existence of God, by B. Magnus.--Descartes and the phenomenological problem of the embodiment of consciousness, by J. M. Edie.--The person and his body: critique of existentialist responses to Descartes, (...) by P. A. Bertocci. (shrink)

The virtue of humility is often considered to be at odds with common business practice. In recent years, however, scholars within business ethics and leadership have shown an increasing interest in humility. Despite such attention, the argument for the relevance of humility in business could be expanded. Unlike extant research that focuses on humility as a character-building virtue or instrumentally useful leadership trait, this article argues that humility reflects the interdependent nature of business. Through such an approach, the article gives (...) an extrinsic motivation of the relevance of humility in business, and, from a theoretical point of view, links the intra-personal and intra-organizational perspective on humility to an inter-organizational one. The article contextualizes the virtue of humility by relating it to the economic, cognitive, and moral aspects of business practice and managerial work. It claims that the assumption of self-sufficiency in business is a grave misrepresentation of what business is—a practice characterized by interdependency. Potential links between virtue ethics, leadership, and contextually oriented theories of business, such as stakeholder theory, network theories, and resource dependence theory, are also identified. (shrink)

Emotions can have both enhancing and impairing effects on various cognitive processes, from lower (e.g., perceptual) to higher level (e.g., mnemonic and executive) processes. The present article discusses emerging brain imaging evidence linking these opposing effects of emotion, which points to overlapping and dissociable neural systems involving both bottom-up and top-down mechanisms. The link between the enhancing and impairing effects is also discussed in a clinical context, with a focus on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), where these opposing effects tend to (...) co-occur, are exacerbated, and are detrimental. Overall, the present review highlights the need to consider together enhancing and impairing effects of emotion on cognition in studies investigating emotion–cognition interactions. (shrink)

Species conservation activities are gaining more attention in the context of environmental degradation. This article proposes to tackle different semiotic aspects of reintroduction as one possible way of furthering species conservation. More specifically, we aim to bring forth the strength of ecosemiotic perspective when dealing with such a complex matter with many different human and non-human subjects. We concentrate on animal agency, search and function tone, semiotic fitting and changes in umwelten when analysing the reintroduction process from the perspective of (...) the animal. When considering the locals’ perspective, we take into account the appeal and cultural placement of the species, as well as human and non-human umwelt overlap when it comes to resources. As our case study we use the European mink (Mustela lutreola) and its reintroduction to the island of Hiiumaa and planned reintroduction to the island of Saaremaa in Estonia. By employing semiotic analysis, we discover that reintroduced animals need to exhibit innovation and plasticity to establish novel semiotic relations but also restore relations characteristic to the historical environments of the species. We argue that human views and expectations towards the species and (re)introduction efforts account for animals’ appearance and agency. Additionally, contrast with other wild species, the perceived overlap of human and non-human umwelten, and broader conservation discourse are decisive for the formation of interspecific relations in situ. Thus, ecosemiotcs proves to be a valuable research platform for an analysis of conservation practices that targets both, sociocultural context and animal umwelten. (shrink)

The underdetermination of theory by evidence is supposed to be a reason to rethink science. It is not. Many authors claim that underdetermination has momentous consequences for the status of scientific claims, but such claims are hidden in an umbra of obscurity and a penumbra of equivocation. So many various phenomena pass for `underdetermination' that it's tempting to think that it is no unified phenomenon at all, so I begin by providing a framework within which all these worries can be (...) seen as species of one genus: A claim of underdetermination involves (at least implicitly) a set of rival theories, a standard of responsible judgment, and a scope of circumstances in which responsible choice between the rivals is impossible. Within this framework, I show that one variety of underdetermination motivated modern scepticism and thus is a familiar problem at the heart of epistemology. I survey arguments that infer from underdetermination to some reëvaluation of science: top-down arguments infer a priori from the ubiquity of underdetermination to some conclusion about science; bottom-up arguments infer from specific instances of underdetermination, to the claim that underdetermination is widespread, and then to some conclusion about science. The top-down arguments either fail to deliver underdetermination of any great significance or (as with modern scepticism) deliver some well-worn epistemic concern. The bottom-up arguments must rely on cases. I consider several promising cases and find them to either be so specialized that they cannot underwrite conclusions about science in general or not be underdetermined at all. Neither top-down nor bottom-up arguments can motivate any deep reconsideration of science. (shrink)

In this paper it is analyzed from the informational perspective the relation between mind and body, an ancient philosophic issue defined as a problem, which still did not receive up to date an adequate solution. By introducing/using the concept of information, it is shown that this concept includes two facets, one of them referring to the common communications and another one referring to a hidden/structuring matter-related information, effectively acting in the human body and in the living systems, which determines the (...) dynamic inter-change of information between specific structures of the organism by electric/electronic/chemical agents and genetic/epigenetic processes. It is shown that the maintenance of body, permanently and obligatory depending on the external matter (foods, air, water) resources, needed to provide both the structuring/restructuring basic material and energy, determines the necessary existence of an info-managing system, administrating the internal mechano-chemical/physical processes. As a natural consequence, such a system should organize and assure own survival by an effective informational operability to detect the external food resources, to select the appropriate interest information and to decide as a function of circumstances. One important component in such an informational system is memory, allowing to dispose of the reference informational data for analysis/comparison and the selection between good and bad binary possible decisions. The memory receives and stores therefore signals from external reality and from the body itself, referring to the emotional reaction, digestion status, creation, and inherited predilections, within specific info-neural communication circuits between the brain and body execution/sensitive organs, the human body appearing as an integrated info-matter self-managed dynamic system. The specific body components memorize information with different degrees of info-integration: short/long-term integration, emotive/action reaction, info-abilities, culminating with the integration in the chromosomal structures by epigenetic processes. The new acquired information is transgenerationally transmissible, and is manifested as new traits, showing the adaptation capability of the human and close relation between mind and body. Analyzing the results of such a mind-body informational model in comparison with the earlier assumed/proposed/asserted archaic, Greek and Occidental philosophies, which represent only partial aspects of this relation, it is shown that this informational model, elaborated in terms of information on the basis of scientific reasons and arguments, constitutes a general, realist, and coherent model of the mind-body relation, able to integrate and/or explain most of the others. (shrink)

The close ties between modes of governing, subjectivities and critique in contemporary societies challenge the role of critical social research. The classical normative ethos of the unmasking researcher unravelling various oppressive structures of dominant vs. dominated groups in society is inadequate when it comes to understand de-politicizing mechanisms and the struggles they bring about. This article argues that only a non-normative position can stay attentive to the constant and complex evolution of modes of governing and the critical operations actors themselves (...) engage in. The article outlines a non-normative but critical programme based on an ethos of re-politicizing contemporary pervasive modes of governing. The analytical advantages and limitations of such a programme are demonstrated by readings of both Foucauldian studies and the works of and debates regarding the French pragmatic sociology of Boltanski and Thévenot. (shrink)

In this article, interviewing from a descriptive, phenomenological, human scientific perspective is examined. Methodological issues are raised in relation to evaluative criteria as well as reflective matters that concern the phenomenological researcher. The data collection issues covered are 1) the selection of participants, 2) the number of participants in a study, 3) the interviewer and the questions, and 4) data collection procedures. Certain conclusions were drawn indicating that phenomenological research methods cannot be evaluated on the basis of an empiricist theory (...) of science, but must be critiqued from within a phenomenological theory of science. Some reflective matters, experienced by the phenomenological researcher, are also elaborated upon. (shrink)

Agnostic analyses of unique video material from a Mother and Baby Unit were carried out to investigate the usefulness of such analyses to the unit. The goal was to improve outcomes: the health of mothers and their babies. The method was to implement a learning machine that becomes more useful over time and over task. A feasible set-up is here described, with the purpose of producing intelligible and useful results to healthcare professionals at the unit by means of a vision (...) processing pipeline, grouped together with multi-modal capabilities of handling annotations and audio. Algorithmic bias turned out to be an obstacle that could only partly be handled by modern pipelines for automated feature analysis. The professional use of complex quantitative scoring for various mental health-related assessments further complicated the automation of laborious tasks. Activities during the MBU stay had previously been shown to decrease psychiatric symptoms across diagnostic groups. The implementation and first set of experiments on a learning machine for the unit produced the first steps toward explaining why this is so, in turn enabling decision support to staff about what to do more and what to do less of. (shrink)

Religious marketing is a process of making decisions related to what should and should not be done so that the church could fulfill its mission and serve the parishioners. Religious marketing focuses upon the way the parishioners behave and their satisfaction, because these aspects are very important so that the Orthodox Church could fulfill its mission. A small number of active parishioners is usually interpreted as a sign of incompetence to attract and keep the existing members. Considering this aspect, it (...) is necessary to do the analysis of perceived quality, perceived value and the expectations of the Orthodox related to the religious services. These factors determine the level of their satisfaction and the active involvement in the activities of the church. Motivating and determining the Orthodox parishioners to become loyal to the Orthodox Church would be a great advantage for the fulfillment of its mission, but in order to achieve this it is necessary to know a few marketing elements. (shrink)

The present study represents a preliminary theoretical attempt to analyse the socio-political influence and impact of the Romanian Orthodoxy within the Romanian public life and political culture since 1990, both through the relation between the Orthodox Church and the state, and its impact on the wider society. An open-ended reflection on a constantly unfolding reality, the approach focuses on demonstrating the profound “modernity”—not backwardness—of Orthodoxy’s implicit political theology and derived ideologies and their “modern” destructiveness. The pivotal segment of the study (...) is the relation between modernity and a theory of exclusion derived from a rather unorthodox (brief) interpretation of its emergence from the main carriers of modernity, namely Enlightenment and humanism. Instead of conclusion, the final section compiles and comments a few reformist initiatives and some possible philosophical-theological ways out of the deadlock of ideological self-centrism that still dominates our Orthodoxy. (shrink)

This paper argues that we should take into account the process of historical transmission to enrich our understanding of material culture. More specifically, I want to show how the rewriting of history and the invention of tradition impact material objects and our beliefs about them. I focus here on the transmission history of the mechanical calculator invented by the German savant Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Leibniz repeatedly described his machine as functional and wonderfully useful, but in reality it was never finished (...) and didn't fully work. Its internal structure also remained unknown. In 1879, however, the machine re-emerged and was reinvented as the origin of all later calculating machines based on the stepped drum, to protect the priority of the German Leibniz against the Frenchman Thomas de Colmar as the father of mechanical calculation. The calculator was later replicated to demonstrate that it could function ‘after all’, in an effort to deepen this narrative and further enhance Leibniz's computing acumen. (shrink)

Review of Mircea Flonta, The Solitary Thinker. Criticism and Practice of Philosophy in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Works, (Bucharest: Humanitas, 2008).

In recent years, much work has been done on the role of images in Hobbes. But there is an unsolved riddle with regard to the famous frontispiece of Leviathan (1651). Why is there nothing monstrous in the sovereign body depicted, despite the fact that it is named for a Biblical sea monster? In this article it is argued that there is a monster just barely hidden in the image and that the iconographical tradition helps us rediscover this creature. We argue (...) that this monstrosity serves a theoretical and political purpose pertaining to fear and imagery within Hobbes’s overall project and in the political context of his time. Moreover, we argue that the discovery of the hitherto unknown monster should make political theory and intellectual history sensitive to the role played by physical images in Hobbes as well as in political thought at large. (shrink)

Whistleblowing on organizational wrongdoing is becoming increasingly prevalent. What aspects of the person, the context, and the transgression relate to whistleblowing intentions and to actual whistleblowing on corporate wrongdoing? Which aspects relate to retaliation against whistleblowers? Can we draw conclusions about the whistleblowing process by assessing whistleblowing intentions? Meta-analytic examination of 193 correlations obtained from 26 samples (N = 18,781) reveals differences in the correlates of whistleblowing intentions and actions. Stronger relationships were found between personal, contextual, and wrongdoing characteristics and (...) whistleblowing intent than with actual whistleblowing. Retaliation might best be predicted using contextual variables. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

There is a history of thinking that photographs provide a special kind of access to the objects depicted in them, beyond the access that would be provided by a painting or drawing. What is included in the photograph does not depend on the photographer’s beliefs about what is in front of the camera. This feature leads Kendall Walton to argue that photographs literally allow us to see the objects which appear in them. Current generative algorithms produce images in response to (...) users’ text prompts. Depending on the parameters, the output can resemble specific people or things which are named in the prompt. This resemblance does not depend on the user’s beliefs, so generated images are in this sense like photographs. Given this parallel, how should we think about AI-generated images? (shrink)

This article provides concrete examples of a phenomenological approach to empathy training, which is a pedagogical method designed for higher education. First, the phenomenology of empathy and empathy training is briefly described. Second, excerpts from training sessions in higher education are provided as examples. The examples are meant as to concretize the purpose of the training in relation to the overall pedagogical process. In addition, some clarifications are made about how a phenomenological approach can facilitate university students’ deeper understanding of (...) how empathy relate to interpersonal understanding in the we-relation. (shrink)

In der 1970 gegründeten Reihe erscheinen Arbeiten, die philosophiehistorische Studien mit einem systematischen Ansatz oder systematische Studien mit philosophiehistorischen Rekonstruktionen verbinden. Neben deutschsprachigen werden auch englischsprachige Monographien veröffentlicht. Gründungsherausgeber sind: Erhard Scheibe, Günther Patzig und Wolfgang Wieland. Von 1990 bis 2007 wurde die Reihe von Jürgen Mittelstraß mitherausgegeben.

These are details of research conducted in November and December 2007. The file is meant as a supplement to publication, and I have not attempted here to provide any analysis of the results.

Name der Zeitschrift: Millennium Jahrgang: 10 Heft: 1 Seiten: 145-214.

Current admission criteria for migrants in Western states tend to favor the well-to-do, able-bodied, and well-qualified. This leads to migration patterns that exacerbate global inequalities. In this article, I will consider how economic migration affects global inequality of opportunity, and how we might alter admission criteria in order to mitigate negative effects. I will proceed by discussing cosmopolitan and nationalist positions to open borders and economic migration. In particular, I will address David Miller’s objections to using open borders to remedy (...) global inequality of opportunity. The argument I present agrees with the benefits of a conception of justice that allows for degrees of partiality and a state’s right to control their borders. However, I argue that Western states’ roles in perpetuating global inequality of opportunity leads to moral demands, which can in part be met by fair economic migration. Furthermore, I will consider what fairer economic migration might consist in. The model I propose would rank migrants based on their level of disadvantage, how little their emigration would affect the country they are emigrating from, and how great it might improve the opportunities in the country they are moving to. (shrink)

Portraying the firm as a ‘black box’, as traditional conceptions of the firm tend to do, has been strongly criticised by stakeholder theorists. This article claims, however, that the ‘black box problem’ has not been satisfactorily resolved by stakeholder theory itself. The failure to bring clarity to the internal realities of the firm has led to unacceptable conceptions of the firm from a moral agency point of view. For example, stakeholder theory tends to portray the firm as an exchange system (...) with an input-output thought model as a basis. Such a conception does not provide a credible account of moral agency and results in problematic consequences for stakeholder theory, for example when it comes to motivating the existence of corporate moral purposes and ethically acceptable foundations of stakeholder interests. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} Focusing mainly on a number of unpublished texts by Collingwood, especially his “Lectures on the Ontological Proof of the Existence of God,” the study examines the English philosopher’s innovative interpretation of the Anselm’s main contribution to the philosophical-theological tradition. Collingwood insightfully shows how the ontological argument can be used in (...) analyzing and discussing the religious experience, not in trying to formulate a logical proof of God’s existence. When abstracted from the individual’s practical religious life, that is, from the experience of prayer, worship, and the like, mind’s awareness of God cannot be understood. Resorting mainly to Anselm, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Descartes, Collingwood argues that the externality of the Platonic absolute is that of an absolute transcendent whereas the Christian God is not only conceived as the transcendent cause of all things, but also as the immanent spirit in them. By asserting the unity of the mind—regarded as identical with its acts—this interpretation is meant to serve both as a means towards self-knowledge, and as a starting point for a future conceptual unification of religion and philosophy. (shrink)

Originally published in 1923, this book was the outcome of the wish of the Council of the Girls' Public Day School Trust, now known as the Girls' Day School Trust, to commemorate in written form the jubilee of the foundation of its first schools. The text provides an accessible account of the Trust and its schools, placing them in the broader context of educational change and examining their relationship with other institutions. Illustrative figures are also included. This book will be (...) of value to anyone with an interest in the history of education and the development of female education. (shrink)