Plato's Republic lurks in cybernetics, a word popularly attributed to US American mathematician Norbert Wiener (1894–1964). In his accounts of how he came up with it, however, Wiener never mentions Plato, though he does note it was formed from the ancient Greek word kubernētēs (navigator). Among the earliest popular books about the cybernetics craze are three published in France, and their authors show a special interest in the origin of cybernetics. In something like learned rebukes to Wiener, all three books (...) credit Plato with significant use of kubernē-based terms. This article presents evidence, one, that Wiener knows well he has chosen a word with a Platonic history and, two, that Wiener deems the technical and social climate of ancient Athens (and of the Republic) instructive only as an anti-model for the mid-20th-century United States and so does not feel compelled to associate cybernetics with Plato. Instead, Wiener focuses on the challenges cybernetics and automation pose for his own engineering-oriented, capitalist, multiracial, democratic republic. Wiener's decisions not to use Plato as an authorizing force and not to put ancient Athens on a pedestal merit recognition, since subsequent writers link ancient Athens with cybernation via a presumption that cybernation will enable and fully democratize the sort of leisure activities, including thinking and participation in public life, deemed by some to be emblematic of ancient Athens. (shrink)

Against an increasingly authoritarian background of testing and instruction, concern is growing about disengagement and loss of depth and quality in education at all levels. Child Centred Education seeks to explore the role of Primary education within this debate. This book inspires teachers seeking to make their practice more genuinely educational. Authors Christine Doddington and Mary Hilton capture the current opinion that primary schools can begin to reclaim some of their autonomy, be innovative, and become more creative. Based (...) on wide ranging research, the book sets out to revive the creative alternative to the rigid and impoverished learning experienced by too many primary school children. The authors trace the origins and history of the child-centered tradition; set out its fundamental beliefs and values; and explore its place in education today. This book is for teachers, school governors, local authority officers, undergraduate and graduate teacher training, and professional development courses. (shrink)

Good explanations are not only true or probably true, but are also relevant to a causal question. Current models of causal explanation either only address the question of the truth of an explanation, or do not distinguish the probability of an explanation from its relevance. The tasks of scenario construction and conversational explanation are distinguished, which in turn shows how scenarios can interact with conversational principles to determine the truth and relevance of explanations. The proposed model distinguishes causal discounting from (...) causal backgrounding , and makes predictions concerning the differential effects of contextual information about alternative explanations on: (a) the kind of mental models constructed; (b) belief revision about probable cause; and (c) the perceived quality of a focal explanation. Four experiments are reported that test these predictions. The significance of the notion of explanatory relevance for research on causal explanation is then discussed. (shrink)

In this unprecedented time, there are many questions and plenty of speculation surrounding what life will be like after the South African nationwide lockdown. There is concern over the effects that the lockdown will have on worship services when churches are in a position to open their doors to the public once more. As a result of recognising the lockdown as a liminal phase, perspectives are shared when considering how the church will gather again in a post-lockdown context and therefore (...) a post-liminal phase. One prevailing perspective in considering this post-liminal phase involves koinonia and how an undiscriminating virus can remind those to further practise inclusivity and ubuntu, by embracing sameness and difference when ‘being church’. In contrast, another important perspective focuses on ritualising certain measures in the worship service to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), when gathering in church buildings is permissible in a post-lockdown context. This is concluded by echoing the spirit of ubuntu, namely, ‘I am because we are’, in ‘being church’ during and after the crisis of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Contribution: From the perspective of Liturgical and Ritual Studies, this article aims to contribute to the Theological perspectives of COVID-19. (shrink)

Causal pre-emption scenarios are problematic for the counterfactual framework of causation (CFC) because people judge an action to be the actual cause of an outcome although the outcome would have occurred anyway due to the action of a pre-empted alternative cause. We propose that commonsense causal questions typically probe specific events that actually happened as and how they did, and show that counterfactuals that probe specific events match selections of actual cause, and dissociations only occur with non-specific counterfactuals. In addition, (...) the pre-empted action is often selected as the or an actual cause when it causes the pre-empting action (auto-pre-emption). Judgements of an action’s responsibility for the outcome track judgements of actual cause following the legal sine qua non principle. Agent reproach is also influenced by the agent's intention. The effects of causal dependency structure and counterfactual question type are robust across the intentionality of the pre-empting action and scenario content. (shrink)

Aging is accompanied by changes in general cognitive functioning which may impact the learning rate of older adults; however, this is often not controlled for in cognitive aging studies. We investigated the contribution of differences in learning rates to age-related differences in landmark knowledge acquired from route learning. In Experiment 1 we used a standard learning procedure in which participants received a fixed amount of exposure to a route. Consistent with previous research, we found age-related deficits in associative cue and (...) landmark sequence knowledge. Experiment 2 controlled for differences in learning rates by using a flexible exposure learning procedure. Specifically, participants were trained to a performance criterion during route learning before being tested on the content of their route knowledge. While older adults took longer to learn the route than younger adults, the age-related differences in associative cue knowledge were abolished. The deficit in landmark sequence knowledge, however, remained. Experiment 3 replicated these results and introduced a test situation in which a deficit in landmark sequence knowledge yielded an increased likelihood of disorientation in older adults. The findings of this study suggest that age-related deficits in landmark associative cue knowledge are attenuated by controlling for learning rates. In contrast, landmark sequence knowledge deficits persist and are best explained by changes in the learning strategy of older adults to acquire task essential associative cue knowledge at the expense of supplementary sequence knowledge. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAccording to difference-based models of causal judgement, the epistemic state of the agent should not affect judgements of cause. Four experiments examined opportunity chains in which a physical event enabled a subsequent proximal cause to produce an outcome. All four experiments showed that when the proximal cause was a human action, it was judged as more causal if the agent was aware of his opportunity than if he was not or if the proximal cause was a physical event. The first (...) two experiments showed that these preferences could not be explained in terms of differences in perceived conditional probability, social controllability or perceptions of the causal sequence as forming a single unit. The third experiment showed that awareness affected the perceived deliberateness with which the action brought the outcome about but not its perceived voluntariness. The fourth experiment showed that... (shrink)

The term 'cosmic consciousness' is mostly used either as an ontological fundamental in metaphysics or to name a mystical experience (event). It was first popularized as a psychological state, an evolutionary attainment following the event, while extension of the mystical experience over time comprises another state, for which the term is also used. Drawing on a personal journey of discovery involving six people's reports of spontaneous cosmic consciousness, including the author's own, this article starts with first-person accounts of the mystical (...) event and state. Then, it reviews the origin of the event–state conflation, and goes on to consider some aspects of the experience and category as used. This includes comments on the phenomenology and conceptual structure of spontaneous cosmic consciousness experience, with the suggestion of a paradigm form along with consideration of 'enlightenment' and the place of psi. (shrink)

The term 'psi wars' refers to a conflict between those who admit and those who reject the veridicality of psi. Some sort of 'peace' with regard to psi and related topics could be beneficial, particularly as part of a paradigm shift that is arguably already upon us. Here, the area of interest is first conceptualized as a subject–object dichotomy ranging between the poles of the 'supernormal' and 'paranatural'. Parallel to this schema, the domain and its evidential base are sketched through (...) three contemporary investigations exemplifying laboratory types, and some issues are raised concerning liminality, reduction, and proof. Then, on the working assumption that the basic claim for the veridicality of the supernormal-paranatural is at least reasonable, implications for metaphysics are addressed. Taking materialism as the default position, a route through postmaterialisms to a 'transmaterialism' is outlined. The former are to accommodate psi. The latter is introduced as a pluralist approach to metaphysics for a deeper resolution of the conflict. (shrink)

One of the greatest problems facing luxury goods firms in a globalizing market is that of counterfeiting. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the different types of counterfeiting that take place in thefashion industry and the ethical issues raised. We argue that the problem partly lies in the industry itself. Copying of designs is endemic and condoned, which raises several ethical dilemmas in passing judgment on the practice of counterfeiting. We analyze the ethical issues in a number of (...) different types of counterfeiting encountered in the fashion industry. We conclude with some observations on the general implications for ethics in intellectual property rights. (shrink)

Este dicionário dá aos termos técnicos da filosofia uma definição acessível e quase sempre esclarecida pela etimologia. Seu objetivo é ajudar o leitor não-especializado a fazer um juízo da 'utilidade' da filosofia e de seu impacto sobre nossa língua, identificando os mais importantes filósofos.

We discuss what makes a “good” environmental nudge from the policy maker’s point of view. We first delineate what is paternalistic about environmental nudges. We then discuss the effectiveness of nudges, including their paradoxical effects on the targeted behaviour, as well as possible collateral effects on the decision-maker’s wellbeing. We also discuss why the libertarian and ethical aspect of nudges may render them more, and not less, attractive as policy instruments and decision aids. We conclude by discussing accuracy and privacy (...) concerns of information-based nudges, and with some recommendations for the design of effective and ethical nudges. (shrink)

Illness is a reality that affects all people, and healing is the main reason why people attend worship services in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the Ritual Studies scholar Ronald Grimes, illness is a social reality; it is socially imagined and constructed. Healing in the church is something that many believers experience, also in the context of worship and liturgy. In order to explore such healing as it occurs in liturgy a research project was undertaken making use of both empirical work (...) and a literature study. The aim of this research was to take the light off of direct pastoral care and investigate how the liturgy affects individuals within the congregation with regard to healing. A praxis-theory cycle was followed in the research, and a preliminary liturgical theory for praxis was developed based on the insight from the empirical study and ritual theory that healing through worship entails either transformation or reconciliation. (shrink)

Recently, psychological phenomena have been expanded to new domains, crisscrossing boundaries of organizational levels, with the emergence of areas such as social personality and ecosystem learning. In this contribution, we analyze the ascription of an individual-based concept (personality) to the social level. Although justified boundary crossings can boost new approaches and applications, the indiscriminate misuse of concepts refrains the growth of scientific areas. The concept of social personality is based mainly on the detection of repeated group differences across a population, (...) in a direct transposition of personality concepts from the individual to the social level. We show that this direct transposition is problematic for avowing the nonsensical ascription of personality even to simple electronic devices. To go beyond a metaphoric use of social personality, we apply the organizational approach to a review of social insect communication networks. Our conceptual analysis shows that socially self-organized systems, such as isolated ant trails and bee’s recruitment groups, are too simple to have social personality. The situation is more nuanced when measuring the collective choice between nest sites or foraging patches: some species show positive and negative feedbacks between two or more self-organized social structures so that these co-dependent structures are inter-related by second-order, social information systems, complying with a formal requirement for having social personality: the social closure of constraints. Other requirements include the decoupling between individual and social dynamics, and the self-regulation of collective decision processes. Social personality results to be sometimes a metaphorical transposition of a psychological concept to a social phenomenon. The application of this organizational approach to cases of learning ecosystems, or evolutionary learning, could help to ground theoretically the ascription of psychological properties to levels of analysis beyond the individual, up to meta-populations or ecological communities. (shrink)

I suggest that contemporary economics shares many of the characteristics of methodological behaviourism in psychology, with its emphasis on the influence of motivation, learning, and situational incentives on behaviour, and minimal interest in the details of the cognitive processes that transform input (information) into output (behaviour). The emphasis on these characteristics has the same strengths and weaknesses in economics as in behaviourist psychology.

Elizabeth Griffith’s play A Wife in the Right (1772) features a nabob character, a British man returned from India after having made his fortune through imperial pursuits. This article explores Griffith’s use of the nabob and how the theme of national identity is linked to a discourse around the potential gap between external appearance and internal character in this drama. This article aims to contribute to the growing scholarship surrounding female dramatists in the long eighteenth century by providing an initial (...) step in close reading this drama by Griffith in the context of philosophy and medical writing of the period. Applying, more specifically, Adam Smith’s philosophical and George Cheyne’s medical writing to a close reading of A Wife in the Right, this article reads Griffith’s nabob character and her commentary on national identity as part of a broader social performance of self in this period. (shrink)

O presente artigo tem como objeto o historicismo, a abordagem filosófica que considera a história como um fator crucial para a configuração dos valores e crenças e critérios dos homens e mulheres. De modo mais específico, eu exploro nas páginas seguintes alguns problemas que cercam a abordagem historicista e sua relação com a ação política e o discurso filosófico. Faço isso através da análise do pensamento de dois filósofos cuja contribuição tem sido considerada muito importante para a filosofia política hodierna: (...) Cornélius Castoriadis e Richard Rorty. Ambos os autores, além de decididamente historicistas, desenvolveram sua obra a partir de crítica e releitura de alguns elementos filosofia hegeliana e os dois procuram oferecer uma alternativa para a filosofia marxista. A minha análise de Castoriadis acompanha a sua crítica ao “universalismo objetivista do marxismo” e a sua proposta de uma “ontologia histórica” para daí então comentar alguns possíveis problemas decorrentes do seu historicismo. Em seguida eu exploro as possíveis virtudes da filosofia de Castoriadis, apontadas por Richard Rorty, para em seguida mostrar como o próprio Rorty oferece uma possível saída aos impasses do historicismo de Castoriadis. (shrink)

The integral age demands a new economic vision. This has to emphasize exchange as a processes not the exchange of things. It must address humanity's unique compulsion to learn using collaborative learning networks. These are what energize the self-organizing global change now accelerating the emergence of new global economic institutions and processes. This new vision requires political economy (i.e., economics integrated with its sociopolitical context).

Improving generalization in psychology will require more expansive data collection to fuel more expansive statistical models, beyond the scale of traditional lab research. We argue that citizen science is uniquely positioned to scale up data collection and, that in spite of certain limitations, can help to alleviate the generalizability crisis.

The validity of an argument depends on the soundness of its premises. In the recent paper by Steele et al., conclusions are based on the initial construction of definitions relating to ‘desire’ and...

We argue that logical expressions in human language enable speakers to perform particular acts as well as stating propositions which may be true or false. We present a conversational action planning model of co-ordinated reasoning, which we use to predict choice of logical expressions in situations in which two people co-operate in the face of risk and uncertainty. We first show how this model predicts preferences for formulations of conditional directives where a principal instructs an agent on how to behave (...) in a hypothetical situation. Second, we show how this model accounts for choices of quantity and probability expressions that express risk, in situations where a professional advises a client on her options. We conclude that the pragmatic signals encoded in human logical vocabulary can facilitate the co-ordination of social interaction through aiding mutual recognition of intentions on joint projects where collaboration is likely to create value. (shrink)

Interactive Video (IV) is now firmly established as a training tool in commerce and industry; the electronic maintenance manual is gaining ground; IV is making inroads into marketing strategies, as a point of sales device; any respectable amusement arcade will have at least one interactive video game; and of course the allied technologies of compact sound disc and CD ROM are both beginning to revolutionise their respective fields of information storage and dissemination.This paper concentrates on the specific problem of Interactive (...) Video and its associated computing requirements in the fields of education and training, suggesting ways in which the introduction of ‘intelligence’ both artificial and human into such systems will be essential to their long-term educational and also commercial success. (shrink)

Learning to Research and Researching to Learn is an essential introduction to developing research skills and conducting practitioner research in the field of education.

A concise introduction to personal and professional numeracy skills, helping readers to become more mathematically competent.