IntroductionApproaches to improve heart rate variability and reduce stress such as breathing retraining are more frequently being integrated into psychotherapy but little research on their effectiveness has been done to date. Specifically, no studies to date have directly compared using a breathing pacer at 6 breaths per minute with compassion focused soothing rhythm breathing.Current StudyIn this randomized controlled experiment, 6 breaths per minute breathing using a pacer was compared with compassion focused soothing rhythm breathing, with a nature video being used (...) as a control group condition.MethodsHeart rate variability measures were assessed via electrocardiogram and respiration belt, and an automated blood pressure machine was used to measure systolic diastolic blood pressure, and heart rate. A total of 96 participants were randomized into the three conditions. Following a 5-min baseline, participants engaged in either 6 breath per minute breathing, soothing rhythm breathing, or watched a nature video for 10 min. To induce a stressful state, participants then wrote for 5 min about a time they felt intensely self-critical. Participants then wrote for 5 min about a time they felt self-compassionate, and the experiment ended with a 10-min recovery period.ResultsConditions did not significantly differ at baseline. Overall, HRV, as measured by standard deviation of NN intervals, low frequency HRV, and LF/HF ratio, increased during the intervention period, decreased during self-critical writing, and then returned to baseline levels during the recovery period. High frequency HRV was not impacted by any of the interventions. The participants in the 6 breath per minute pacer condition were unable to consistently breathe at that rate and averaged about 12 breaths per minute. Time by Condition analyses revealed that both the 6 breaths per minute pacer and soothing breathing rhythm conditions lead to significantly higher SDNN than the nature video condition during breathing practice but there were no significant differences between conditions in response to the self-critical and self-compassionate writing or recovery periods. The 6 breath per minute pacer condition demonstrated a higher LF HRV and LF/HF ratio than the soothing rhythm breathing condition, and both intervention conditions had a higher LF HRV and LF/HF ratio than the nature video.ConclusionsAlthough the 6 breath per minute pacer condition participants were not able to breath consistently at the low pace, both the participants attempting to breathe at 6 breaths per minute as well as those in the soothing rhythm breathing condition effectively increased HR variability as measured by SDNN, and attempting to breathe at 6 breaths per minute led to the highest LF HRV and LF/HF ratio. Both breathing approaches impacted HRV more than watching a relaxing nature video and can potentially be used as key adjuncts in psychotherapy to aid in regulating physiological functioning, although it appears that consistent breathing practice would be needed. (shrink)

A taped conversational interview with Daniel Dennett and Bill Uzgalis covers a wide range of topics arising from Dennett’s thoughts about computing and human beings. The background of Dennett’s work is explored as are his views about mind-brain identity theory, artificial intelligence, functionalism, human exceptionalism, animal culture, language, pain, freedom and determinism, and quality of life.

When comparing alternative courses of action, modern military decision makers often must consider both the military effectiveness and the ethical consequences of the available alternatives. The basis, design, calibration, and performance of a principles-based computational model of ethical considerations in military decision making are reported in this article. The relative ethical violation (REV) model comparatively evaluates alternative military actions based upon the degree to which they violate contextually relevant ethical principles. It is based on a set of specific ethical principles (...) deemed by philosophers and ethicists to be relevant to military courses of action. A survey of expert and non-expert human decision makers regarding the relative ethical violation of alternative actions for a set of specially designed calibration scenarios was conducted to collect data that was used to calibrate the REV model. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the survey showed that people, even experts, disagreed greatly amongst themselves regarding the scenarios’ ethical considerations. Despite this disagreement, two significant results emerged. First, after calibration the REV model performed very well in terms of replicating the ethical assessments of human experts for the calibration scenarios. The REV model outperformed an earlier model that was based on tangible consequences rather than ethical principles, that earlier model performed comparably to human experts, the experts outperformed human non-experts, and the non-experts outperformed random selection of actions. All of these performance comparisons were measured quantitatively and confirmed with suitable statistical tests. Second, although humans tended to value some principles over others, none of the ethical principles involved—even the principle of not harming civilians—completely overshadowed all of the other principles. (shrink)

It is close to current orthodoxy that perceptual experience is to be characterized, at least in part, by its representational content, roughly, by the way it represents things as being in the world around the perceiver. Call this basic idea the content view.

Digital communication has generated forms of written speech that may deviate from standard ones, such as Greeklish (a Latin-alphabet-based script) vs. Greek. The question of interest is how different orthographic representations of the same referent (e.g. petaloyda, “butterfly”, in Greeklish vs. πϵταλούδα “butterfly” in Greek) may influence word processing, particularly visual word recognition and access to affective connotations. 120 Greek native speakers were tested on a lexical decision task, in which script (Greeklish vs. Greek) and valence (positive vs. negative vs. (...) neutral) were manipulated within participants. Words were matched for word class, frequency, concreteness, length, number of syllables and orthographic neighbourhood. Emotional words differed from neutral ones in valence and arousal. Results yielded faster response times for words written in the standard script (Greek) than the non-standard script (Greeklish). Moreover, regardless of script, response times were negatively correlated with the words’ valence, with slowest responses for negative words and fastest for positive ones, suggesting that positive content accelerates lexical access, whereas negative content slows it down. To sum up, although script type was found to affect word recognition, activation of and access to emotional content seemed to resist non-standard characteristics of visual word processing. (shrink)

What is the role of conscious experience in the epistemology of perceptual knowledge: how should we characterise what is going on in seeing that o is F in order to illuminate the contribution of seeing o to their status as cases of knowing that o is F? My proposal is that seeing o involves conscious acquaintance with o itself, the concrete worldly source of the truth that o is F, in a way that may make it evident to the subject (...) that o is an instance of ‘x is F’ as she understands this, and hence evident that o is F. Seeing that o is F is thus a way of its being evident that o is F and is therefore a way of knowing that o is F. (shrink)

This interchange explores the role of girl (ages thirteen to twenty-two) activism in the USA organisation SPARK (Sexualization Protest: Action, Resistance, Knowledge). Some of the many initiatives and programmes SPARK has enacted with girls, including online forums, blog spaces, marches, and summits directly address recent calls to attend to the complexity in understanding and resisting ‘sexualisation’ with teen girls. Several of the girls’ media appearances are explored in detail to illustrate the dynamics of girls’ agency and resistance that emerge in (...) their embodied engagements with ‘sexualisation’. (shrink)

From the 1990s onwards there has been growing interest in the study of biography. As opposed to those who are skeptical of the biographical method, we defend the historiographical importance of collective biographies by contrasting them with biographical collections. By discussing the historical background of biography as a branch of history, and by focusing on the aims, methodology and outcomes of collective biographies, we attempt to show how they both extend and deepen our concept of historical research.

El artículo presenta, en primer lugar, la visión crítica del filósofo español José Luis L. Aranguren, sobre la democracia establecida en España y en el entorno occidental y su propuesta de una «democracia como moral». En segundo lugar, se aborda el papel que debería jugar, según Aranguren, una verdadera izquierda política en toda democracia y, a partir del concepto clave de heterodoxia –en este caso en cuanto des-identificación–, se abre una reflexión acerca del propio ser de la izquierda y de (...) las llamadas políticas de la identidad. Por último, a modo de conclusión, se apunta a un posible diálogo del pensamiento arangureniano con debates actuales sobre la democracia y dentro de la misma izquierda en torno a todas esas cuestiones identitarias. (shrink)

Con la intención de defender el potencial del cosmopolitismo juridico-político hemos emprendido un análisis critico de cuatro premisas comunitaristas sobre las que se apoyan sus partidarios: la premisa ontológica, la instrumental, la ética y la psicológico-moral. Tras ello, se ha prevenido de un comunitarismo que acostumbra servir de aval teórico para proyectos nacionalistas que luchan descarnadamente por defender intereses socioecómicos. Frente al comunitarismo se han ofrecido respuestas desde el cosmopolitismo moral. Pero hemos visto que este también resulta alicorto. En conclusión, (...) y para que sirva de apertura, se argumenta que solo un cosmopolitismo juridico-político puede hacer honor al universalismo moral. In order to endorse political cosmopolitanism we will undertake a critical analysis of the main four premises that support communitarianism: the ontological one, the instrumental one, the ethical one, and the moral-psychological one. Then, we warn that communitarianism usually serves as support for nationalist theoretical proposals that just care about the socio-economic interests of their own countries. In response to communitarianism, we offer some answers from a cosmopolitan moral approach. However, we conclude that this approach is also insufficient. In conclusion, we argue that only a legal and political cosmopolitanism could honor moral universalism. (shrink)

These essays apply influential, pathbreaking psychological studies about women's lives to literature. In their analyses of fictional portraits, contributors both challenge and confirm psychological theories about female identity, about 'connection/separation' as developmental catalysts, and about the impact of gender on 'voice,' moral decision-making, and epistemology in relation to classical and contemporary literary texts, written by both women and men.

Identidad y misión de la Universidad Católica - Constitución Apostólica ex corde eclesial sobre la Universidad Católica (extracto) Juan Pablo II - La Universidad latinoamericana hoy / Ignacio Martín Baró, S.J. / - El rol de las Universidades Católicas en la tarea de evangelizar las culturas en América Latina / César Jerez S.J. / - Generar cultura autónoma / Ignacio Martín Baró, S.J / - La enseñanza de cómo ser crítico / John Passmore / - El capitalismo del saber / (...) Iván Illich / - Ensayo sobre educación en América Latina / Ernesto Sábato / - Los retos de la conciencia moderna - Discurso sobre espíritu positivo / Augusto Comte / - En torno a la crítica de la filosofía del derecho de Hegel / Kart Marx / - Prólogo a la contribución a la crítica de la economía política (1859) / Kart Marx / - El neocapitalismo como caldo de cultivo / Carlos Díaz / - La defensa de la libertad / Josef Pieper / - Moral para intelectuales / Carlos Vaz Ferreira / - Desafíos de la globalización / Luis Ugalde S.J.... (shrink)

Los valores cristianos son ahora más relevantes debido a que las empresas no se preocupan solo del beneficio. mediante una muestra de 176 empresas de la zona 4 de Ecuador, se ha estudiado la aplicación de los valores de solidaridad, honestidad, humildad y responsabilidad en los procesos productivos y de contratación de personal. El objetivo es averiguar si estos valores son relevantes en la gestión. Como resultado se encontró que existen pocas empresas que tengan en cuenta estos valores declarados como (...) tal. La ausencia de estos valores indica que las empresas deben incorporarlos para tener mayor sostenibilidad y responsabilidad social. (shrink)

La crisis actual, que afecta con especial virulencia a España, obliga a reflexionar sobre las relaciones entre el sistema educativo y el sistema económico. En este trabajo, basado en una encuesta a pequeñas y medianas empresas industriales de las comunidades autónomas vasca y navarra, se pretende avanzar en el conocimiento de las relaciones entre los centros de Formación Profesional y las empresas. Se prestará especial atención a las nuevas formas de relación entre ambos agentes (especialmente la formación continua), y al (...) efecto que la colaboración con los centros de FP pueda tener sobre los procesos de innovación de las empresas. Se muestra que, en la actualidad, las actividades de formación continua constituyen una forma de colaboración importante para las empresas y estratégica desde el punto de vista del ajuste entre el sistema de formación y el sistema de innovación. (shrink)

Discovering the underlying mathematical expressions describing a dataset is a core challenge for artificial intelligence. This is the problem of symbolic regression. Despite recent advances in training neural networks to solve complex tasks, deep learning approaches to symbolic regression are underexplored. We propose a framework that leverages deep learning for symbolic regression via a simple idea: use a large model to search the space of small models. Specifically, we use a recurrent neural network to emit a distribution over tractable mathematical (...) expressions and employ a novel risk-seeking policy gradient to train the network to generate better-fitting expressions. Our algorithm outperforms several baseline methods (including Eureqa, the gold standard for symbolic regression) in its ability to exactly recover symbolic expressions on a series of benchmark problems, both with and without added noise. More broadly, our contributions include a framework that can be applied to optimize hierarchical, variable-length objects under a blackbox performance metric, with the ability to incorporate constraints in situ, and a risk-seeking policy gradient formulation that optimizes for best-case performance instead of expected performance. (shrink)

En este artículo abordaremos la cuestión de los ‘puntos de vista’ desde la propuesta filosófica de Alain Badiou. Para ello, recurriremos especialmente a L’être et l’événement y a los últimos seminarios, destinados a elaborar el material para L’Immanence des vérités, y centraremos el interés en las orientaciones de pensamiento constructivista y genérica. De tal modo que asociaremos el constructivismo a la noción de ‘puntos de vista’ y ensayaremos una especie de alternativa a partir de los postulados de Badiou sobre la (...) orientación genérica. In this paper we will address the question of ‘points of view’ from the philosophical proposal of Alain Badiou. In order to do this, we will especially resort to L’être et l’événement and to the last seminars, aimed at elaborating the material for L’Immanence des vérités, and we will focus on constructivist and generic orientations of thought. In such a way that we will associate constructivism with the notion of ‘points of view’ and we will try to propose an alternative based on Badiou’s generic orientation postulates. (shrink)

La Psicología moderna ha generado un gran esfuerzo y enormes recursos de investigación en torno a la personalidad creativo/innovadora. Marcos epistemológicos y metodológicos positivistas experimentales han marcado el sentido predominante de la investigación. Tantos recursos y dedicación investigadora no han obtenido hasta la fecha resultados concluyentes y mucho menos satisfactorios. La fusión entre creatividad-innovación y productividad desde los discursos hegemónicos psicológico-manageriales marcan el sentido de la investigación predominante. Los diferentes significados que connotan a los términos “Sociedad de la Información” y (...) “Sociedad del Conocimiento” conllevan cada uno por su lado diferentes significados e implicaciones en relación con la acción innovadora de los consumidores y usuarios. (shrink)

The first truly introductory text on Lyotard, this book situates Lyotard's interventions in the postmodern debate in the wider context of his rethinking of the politics of representation. Bill Readings examines Lyotard's relationship to structuralism, Marxism and semiotics, and contrasts his work with the literary deconstruction of Paul de Man; he positions Lyotard's work so as to draw out the implications of poststructurlaism's attention to _difference_ in reading. Lyotard's willingness to question the political and examine the relationship between art and (...) politics is shown to undermine the charge that deconstruction abdicates political and social articulation. (shrink)

Bill Brewer presents an original view of the role of conscious experience in the acquisition of empirical knowledge. He argues that perceptual experiences must provide reasons for empirical beliefs if there are to be any determinate beliefs at all about particular objects in the world. This fresh approach to epistemology turns away from the search for necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge and works instead from a theory of understanding in a particular area.

In this powerful volume, 15 leading American philosophers examine and critically reassess Douglass's significance for contemporary social and political thought. Philosophically, Douglass's work sought to establish better ways of thinking, especially in the light of his convictions about our humanity and democratic legitimacy - convictions that were culturally and historically shaped by his experience of, and struggle against, the institution of American slavery. Contributors include Bernard R. Boxill, Angela Y. Davis, Lewis R. Gordon, Leonard Harris, Tommy L. Lott, Howard McGary, (...) and John P. Pittman. (shrink)

This paper considers the applicability of expressive theories of punishment to the punishment of corporate entities. The author argues that although arguments which suggest that the denunciatory account is superior to a communicative account in paradigmatic cases of punishment cannot be transferred straightforwardly to cover this kind of case, there are other reasons, connected with the different attitudes we have to regret and remorse in individual and collective cases, for preferring a communicative to a denunciatory account here.

In his comments, Richard Fumerton carefully develops two fundamental concerns with my views, which he interprets sympathetically, and almost entirely correctly. Before turning to these concerns, though, I must make one point about his concise opening statement of my principal claims. As I hope is clear from my précis, perceptual experiences provide reasons for empirical beliefs not simply in virtue of sharing demonstrative content with them. The key idea is that a person cannot properly grasp the objective content of these (...) experiences—that is, he cannot actually have experiences of particular things in the mind-independent world around him—without understanding that his apprehension that things are thus and so out there is in part due to the fact that they are. He therefore recognizes the relevant content as his epistemic openness to the way things objectively are. This is clearly central to my overall position. (shrink)

Psychiatry is unique in medicine in being on the border between science and the humanities. Science provides insight into the 'causes' of a problem, enabling us to formulate an 'explanation', while the humanities provide insight into its 'meanings' and helps with our 'understanding'. The new interdisciplinary field of 'philosophy of psychiatry' has developed to explore the range of issues relevant to this border country. The Oxford Textbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry is a unique textbook which provides a detailed introduction to (...) the field, a framework for study and skill development, and an overview of current research. It focuses on case studies in 5 key topic areas. Each case study is supported by selected readings from both philosophy and mental health, thinking skills exercises, self-test questions, key learning points and detailed guides to further reading. (shrink)

Nathan Hanna has recently argued against a position I defend in a 2013 paper in this journal and in my 2016 book on punishment, namely that we can punish someone without intending to harm them. In this discussion note I explain why two alleged counterexamples to my view put forward by Hanna are not in fact counterexamples to any view I hold, produce an example which shows that, if we accept a number of Hanna’s own assumptions, punishment does not require (...) an intention to harm, and discuss whether a definition and counter-example approach is the best way to proceed in the philosophy of punishment. I conclude with a brief exegetical discussion of H.L.A Hart’s Prolegomenon to the Principles of Punishment. (shrink)

Bill Griffith is best known as the creator of the Zippy daily comic strip, currently running in over 300 newspapers nationwide, but Zippy was conceived as an underground comix character before he became embraced in the mainstream. Beginning in 1969, Griffith contributed stories to a long list of legendary undergrounds. Lost and Found is not only a collection of these underground comix — hand-picked by the artist himself — but a mini-memoir of the artist’s comix career during the early days (...) of the San Francisco Underground and his nearly twenty year on-again, off-again involvement with Hollywood and TV. This collection from one of the great, pioneering cartoonists also features Griffith’s comics for High Times, The National Lampoon, The San Francisco Examiner and The New Yorker. (shrink)

A timely new edition of the classic journalism guide, now featuring updated material on the importance of reporting in the age of media mistrust and fake news--and how journalists can use technology while also navigating its challenges. More than two decades ago, the Committee of Concerned Journalists gathered some of America's most influential newspeople to ask the question "What is journalism for?" Through exhaustive research, surveys, interviews, and public forums, they identified the essential elements that define journalism and its role (...) in our society. The result is one of the most important books on the media ever written, winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize from Harvard, the Society of Professional Journalists Award, and the Bart Richards Award from Penn State University. Updated with new material covering the ways journalists can deftly leverage technology to their advantage, especially given the shifting revenue architecture--with "clickbait" fading away and consumers paying a higher premium for quality reporting--this fourth edition of The Elements of Journalism is an essential read for journalists, students, and anybody hoping to stay informed in contentious times. (shrink)

This paper argues that the desirable features of postmodernism identified by Ronald Green are not exclusive to postmodernism; that to the extent these features are postmodern, they are not necessarily features of business ethics; that, with qualification, these are desirable features to include in business ethics; that the best way to accomplish this inclusion is by appealing to an Aristotelian model; and that post-modernism has implications for the legal environment of business.

Early modern empiricists thought that the nature of perceptual experience is given by citing the object presented to the mind in that experience. Hallucination and illusion suggest that this requires untenable mind-dependent objects. Current orthodoxy replaces the appeal to direct objects with the claim that perceptual experience is characterized instead by its representational content. This paper argues that the move to content is problematic, and reclaims the early modern empiricist insight as perfectly consistent, even in cases of illusion, with the (...) realist contention that these direct objects of perception are the persisting mind-independent physical objects we all know and love. (shrink)

• Historical: Adam Smith, Thomas Reid; Kant; Bentham and Mill • Contemporary: Normative ethics: indirect influence through Utilitarian theory; Meta-ethics: “Humean” theories of moral motivation (Smith, Blackburn), (also influences accounts of rational action in general). Non-cognitivism (Mackie, Blackburn, Gibbard).

On an act utilitarian view it is morally permissible if not obligatory to choose to perform an action which contributes as much as any other action to the total happiness of all those capable of enjoying happiness. As the view has just been stated, however, there is some question of how we are to understand the phrase “all those capable of enjoying happiness”. For even leaving aside the possibility that animals or spirits might be included, there is still the matter (...) of the size of the population of humans “capable of enjoying happiness”. Furthermore, among our ethical decisions themselves are decisions which would cause a decrease or increase in population and which in perhaps even more specific ways determine the applicability of this phrase “all those capable of enjoying happiness”. According to the socalled classical or total utilitarian principle, the phrase in question is understood as describing some population whose existence will enable one to maximize the net amount of happiness. For on the classical principle what one is obligated to do is simply to maximize net happiness. (shrink)