Following recent trends in the historiography of psychology and psychiatry we argue that psychical research was an important influence in the development of concepts about dissociation. To illustrate this point, we discuss American psychologist and philosopher William James's writings about mediumship, secondary personalities, and hypnosis. Some of James's work on the topic took place in the context of research conducted by the American Society for Psychical Research, such as his early work with the medium Leonora E. Piper . James Following (...) recent trends in the historiography of psychology and psychiatry we argue that psychical research was an important influence in the development of concepts about dissociation. To illustrate this point, we discuss American psychologist and philosopher William James's writings about mediumship, secondary personalities, and hypnosis. Some of James's work on the topic took place in the context of research conducted by the American Society for Psychical Research, such as his early work with the medium Leonora E. Piper . James's work is an example of the influence of psychical research on several aspects of psychology such as early models of the unconscious and of dissociation's work is an example of the influence of psychical research on several aspects of psychology such as early models of the unconscious and of dissociation. (shrink)

Biological evolution provides a creative fount of complex and subtle adaptations, often surprising the scientists who discover them. However, because evolution is an algorithmic process that transcends the substrate in which it occurs, evolution’s creativity is not limited to nature. Indeed, many researchers in the field of digital evolution have observed their evolving algorithms and organisms subverting their intentions, exposing unrecognized bugs in their code, producing unexpected adaptations, or exhibiting outcomes uncannily convergent with ones in nature. Such stories routinely reveal (...) creativity by evolution in these digital worlds, but they rarely fit into the standard scientific narrative. Instead they are often treated as mere obstacles to be overcome, rather than results that warrant study in their own right. The stories themselves are traded among researchers through oral tradition, but that mode of information transmission is inefficient and prone to error and outright loss. Moreover, the fact that these stories tend to be shared only among practitioners means that many natural scientists do not realize how interesting and lifelike digital organisms are and how natural their evolution can be. To our knowledge, no collection of such anecdotes has been published before. This paper is the crowd-sourced product of researchers in the fields of artificial life and evolutionary computation who have provided first-hand accounts of such cases. It thus serves as a written, fact-checked collection of scientifically important and even entertaining stories. In doing so we also present here substantial evidence that the existence and importance of evolutionary surprises extends beyond the natural world, and may indeed be a universal property of all complex evolving systems. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAnxiety and depression diagnoses are associated with suicidal thoughts and behaviours. However, a categorical understanding of these associations limits insight into identifying dimensional mechanisms of suicide risk. This study investigated anxious and depressive features through a lens of suicide risk, independent of diagnosis. Latent class analysis of 97 depression, anxiety, and suicidality-related items among 616 psychiatric outpatients indicated a 3-class solution, specifically: a higher suicide-risk class uniquely differentiated from both other classes by high reported levels of depression and anxious arousal; (...) a lower suicide-risk class that reported levels of anxiety sensitivity and generalised worry comparable to Class 1, but lower levels of depression and anxious arousal; and a low to non-suicidal class that reported relatively low levels across all depression and anxiety measures. Discriminants of the higher suicide-risk class included borderline personality disorder; report... (shrink)

The volume brings together a collection of original papers on some of the main tenets of Joseph Raz's legal and political philosophy: Legal positivism and the nature of law, practical reason, authority, the value of equality, incommensurability, harm, group rights, and multiculturalism. James Griffin and Yael Tamir raise questions concerning Raz's notion of group rights and its application to claims of cultural and political autonomy, while Will Kymlicka and Bernhard Peters examine Raz's theory of multicultural society. Lukas Meyer investigates the (...) applicability of the notion of harm in the intergenerational context. Other papers are devoted to fundamental theoretical tenets of Raz's work. Hillel Steiner and Andrei Marmor examine Raz's account of value pluralism and incommensurability in light of what these authors consider to be goods whose equal distribution must be valued for its own sake. Robert Alexy and Timothy Endicott discuss traditional issues of jurisprudence and legal philosphy with special attention to Raz's contribution. Rüdiger Bittner, Bruno Celano, and J. E. Penner discuss and criticize aspects of Raz's theory of practical reason. Jeremy Waldron presents a critique of Raz's interpretation of authority.This volume concludes with a chapter by Joseph Raz in which he responds to arguments in the foregoing essays. (shrink)

Some video games are said to be philosophical. Despite video games having received some attention in academic philosophy, that contention has not been sufficiently addressed. This paper investigates in what sense video games might be properly called “philosophical”. To this end, I utilize Wittgenstein’s distinction between saying and showing to get into view how some video games might be properly called philosophical. This leads to two senses of being philosophical: a conventional sense of expressing philosophy through propositions, i.e., through saying, (...) and a sense of being genuinely philosophical by expressing philosophical thought through showing. I argue that the conventional sense is not sufficient to call video games philosophical, leaving the question whether there are video games which satisfy the conditions of being genuinely philosophical. I furthermore contend that there are at least some examples of video games which qualify as being philosophical, e.g., Papers, Please and The Stanley Parable. (shrink)

The "hard problem" of today's consciousness studies is subjective experience: understanding why some brain processing is accompanied by an experienced inner life. Recent scientific advances offer insights for understanding the physiological and chemical phenomenology of consciousness. But by leaving aside the internal experiential nature of consciousness in favor of mapping neural activity, such science leaves many questions unanswered. In Ontology of Consciousness, scholars from a range of disciplines -- from neurophysiology to parapsychology, from mathematics to anthropology and indigenous non-Western modes (...) of thought -- go beyond these limits of current neuroscience research to explore insights offered by other intellectual approaches to consciousness. These scholars focus their attention on such philosophical approaches to consciousness as Tibetan Tantric Buddhism, North American Indian insights, pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilization, and the Byzantine Empire. Some draw on artifacts and ethnographic data to make their point. Others translate cultural concepts of consciousness into modern scientific language using models and mathematical mappings. Many consider individual experiences of sentience and existence, as seen in African communalism, Hindi psychology, Zen Buddhism, Indian vibhuti phenomena, existentialism, philosophical realism, and modern psychiatry. Some reveal current views and conundrums in neurobiology to comprehend sentient intellection. Contributors: Karim Akerma, Matthijs Cornelissen, Antoine Courban, Mario Crocco, Christian de Quincey, Thomas B. Fowler, Erlendur Haraldsson, David. J. Hufford, Pavel B. Ivanov, Heinz Kimmerle, Stanley Krippner, Armand J. Labbé, James Maffie, Hubert Markl, Graham Parkes, Michael Polemis, E Richard Sorenson, Mircea Steriade, Thomas Szasz, Mariela Szirko, Robert A.F. Thurman, Edith L.B. Turner, Julia Watkin, Helmut Wautischer. (shrink)

Introduction, Thomas McLaughlinI Literature as Writing1 Representation, W. J. T. Mitchell2 Structure, John Carlos Rowe3 Writing, Barbara Johnson4 Discourse, Paul A. Bove5 Narrative, J. Hillis Miller6 Figurative Language, Thomas McLaughlin7 Performance, Henry Sayre8 Author, Donald E. PeaseII Interpretation9 Interpretation, Steven Mailloux10 Intention, Annabel Patterson11 Unconscious, Franoise Meltzer12 Determinacy/Indeterminacy, Gerald Graff13 Value/Evaluation, Barbara Herrnstein Smith14 Influence, Louis A. Renza15 Rhetoric, Stanley FishIII Literature, Culture, Politics16 Culture, Stephen Greenblatt17 Canon, John Guillory18 Literary History, Lee Patterson19 Gender, Myra Jehlen20 Race, (...) Kwane Anthony Appiah21 Ethnicity, Werner Sollors22 Ideology, James H. KavanaghIn Place of an Afterword--Someone Reading, Frank LentricchiaReferencesList of ContributorsIndex. (shrink)

Michael Winkelman, who is a senior lecturer in the department of anthropology, Arizona State University, and director of its ethnographic field school, has provided a rich overview of the neurophenomenology of shamanism in his book, Shamanism: The Neural Ecology of Consciousness. Written in the tradition of Laughlin, McManus, and d'Aquili's 1992 classic, Brain, Symbol, and Experience: Toward a Neurophenomenology of Consciousness, Winkelman considers shamanism in many of its facets. He explores shamanism's social and symbolic content, and the implications of its (...) neurological underpinnings both for shamanic practitioners and for their clients. (shrink)

Thomas E. Hill, Jr.; Servility and Self-Respect, The Monist, Volume 57, Issue 1, 1 January 1973, Pages 87–104, https://doi.org/10.5840/monist197357135.

In the bracket mushroom, Schizophyllum commune, a recessive genetic alteration, mnd, causes abnormally hyperplastic three‐dimensional mounds of hyphae to rise from the surface of both haploid and dikaryotic mycelia. mnd, although not a genetic block in the fruiting body developmental pathway, is at least partially epistatic to fruiting. Within dikaryons containing both mutant and wild‐type nuclei, [mnd + mnd+], a nonreciprocal somatic recombination event can lead to stable conversion of the mnd+ region of the wild‐type nucleus to mnd. This transformation (...) to the homoallelic [mnd + mnd] condition involves no genomic areas other than the mnd region and permanently prevents any further fruiting. Studies relating to the recombination mechanism have ruled out a diploid intermediate state and other concomitants of orthodox somatic recombination, as well as whole chromosome transfer. Instead, a novel form of internuclear genetic transfer is postulated whereby a nearby locus, mob+, controls the mobilization of the mnd chromosomal region alone from one nucleus to the other within the binucleate cells of dikaryotic mycelia. (shrink)

Thomas Hill, a leading figure in the recent development of Kantian moral philosophy, presents a set of essays exploring the implications of basic Kantian ideas for practical issues. The first part of the book provides background in central themes in Kant's ethics; the second part discusses questions regarding human welfare; the third focuses on moral worth-the nature and grounds of moral assessment of persons as deserving esteem or blame. Hill shows moral, political, and social philosophers just how valuable moral (...) theory can be in addressing practical matters. (shrink)

A new public philosophy began to emerge in the United States during the Progressive Era. Promoted by such intellectuals as John Dewey, William James, and the coUectivists of the New Republic magazine, it called for a citizenry trained in an experimental milieu, free of dogma and emancipated from sources of allegiance other than the new centralized democratic state then being forged. Catholics, however, neither capitulated to the new creed nor retreated into a self-righteous isolation. In a culture whose chief value (...) was pluralism they insisted on the uniqueness of the Church and the need for making value judgments based on a sound philosophy of man. (shrink)

Back to Kant is a study of the rise of the neo-Kantian movement from its origins in the 1850s to its academic preeminence in the years before World War I. Thomas E. Willey describes early neo-Kantianism as a reaction of scientists and scientific philosophers against both the then discredited Hegelianism and Naturphilosophie of the preceding era and the simplistic and deterministic scientific materialism of the 1850s. "Back to Kant" was the slogan of a revolt against theories of knowledge which (...) seemed inadequate to recent discoveries in thermodynamics, physiology, optics and other fields. Because Immanuel Kant was the philosopher who placed Newtonian physics on new epistemological foundations and demonstrated the possibility of universal scientific truth, he was the right thinker for a generation of scholars living through a new scientific revolution in Germany and dissatisfied with both speculative idealism and crude materialism. The second wave of neo-Kantians continued to discuss problems of scientific epistemology in the 1880s and after, but they also showed a keen interest in political and social matters, attempting to bridge liberalism and socialism with Kantian ethics. Neo-Kantians had to face questions of socialism, the place of the working class in society, the phenomenon of social welfare, the challenge of political democracy. Willey uses the biographical approach to develop the relationship between unity and diversity in the movement, and to underscore the importance of personality in history. While individual dissertations and monographs have been written on various thinkers and schools within neo-Kantianism, this is the first wide-ranging history of the entire phenomenon. Willey observes that the movement did succeed in reasserting ethical values and in separating humanistic studies from the methods of physical science. He also discusses the possibility that a wider acceptance of neo-Kantian ideals among bourgeois intellectuals and socialist leaders might have reduced class antagonisms and sustained a stronger feeling of community between Germany and the West. (shrink)

Exploring the predicates of education from theoretical, practical and historical perspectives, this book revalorizes the central role of the humanities in the ethical and aesthetic formation of the individual.

James Fitzjames Stephen is remembered as a judge, legal historian, and the author of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, a reply to J. S. Mill's late works. He is less well remembered for his journalism, though it earned him a reputation among his contemporaries as one of the most trenchant writers on topics ranging across the social, religious, political, moral, and philosophical questions debated in his time. It was largely in his journalistic writing that Stephen set forth his views on these questions. (...) Despite such a reputation, however, only a small proportion of this writing was collected during his lifetime, and very little has been republished since his death.Selected Writings of James Fitzjames Stephen: On Society, Religion, and Government includes thirty-five essays expressing Stephen's views on the questions of his day, which have not lost their interest in ours. He wrote at a time when much of the finest writing in English was published in periodicals, often anonymously. The essays in this volume are drawn mostly from Stephen's unsigned contributions to the Saturday Review, with additions, both signed and unsigned, from other periodicals, extending from the 1850s to the 1880s. (shrink)

This exploratory study investigated the ramifications of e-mail and listservs as modes of journalistic ethical discussion. Results of the e-mail questionnaire to online newspaper journalists indicated that, although American online journalists overwhelmingly use e-mail to conduct both professional and personal business, it is unlikely that many are logging on to electronic discussion groups to discuss ethical issues. Moreover, this study suggests that the "informality" of listservs may reflect their perceived ineffectiveness and consequent underutilization by journalists. Journalists who do participate in (...) listservs may view the "ethical" component as a minor element of their overall Web activities. (shrink)

The tendency to attribute foundationalist ambitions to the Vienna Circle has long obscured our view of its attempted revolution in philosophy. The present paper makes the case for a consistently epistemologically anti-foundationalist interpretation of all three of the Circle's main protagonists: Schlick, Carnap, and Neurath. Corresponding to the intellectual fault lines within the Circle, two ways of going about the radical reorientation of the pursuit of philosophy will then be distinguished and the contemporary potential of Carnap's and Neurath's project explored.

Respect, Pluralism, and Justice is a series of essays which sketches a broadly Kantian framework for moral deliberation, and then uses it to address important social and political issues. Hill shows how Kantian theory can be developed to deal with questions about cultural diversity, punishment, political violence, responsibility for the consequences of wrongdoing, and state coercion in a pluralistic society.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a relatively non-invasive technique to interfere with the function of small cortical areas through currents induced by alternating magnetic fields emanating from a handheld coil placed directly above the targeted area. This technique has clear effects on a whole range of measures of brain function and has become an important research tool in neuropsychiatry. More recently, TMS has been studied in psychiatry mainly to assess its putative therapeutic effects in the treatment of refractory major depression. Most (...) studies indicate that both low-frequency TMS and higher frequency repetitive TMS may have some antidepressant properties. This is most interesting and opens a whole new avenue of low invasive techniques to stimulate the brain in major depression. However, definite therapeutic effects of clinical significance still remain to be demonstrated. (shrink)

This chapter talks about a picture of Crockett Johnson's book, Harold and the Purple Crayon, where Harold, a young toddler, standing with his body facing to our left but with his head turned slightly to the right. When we see Harold making a drawing with his purple crayon in an illustration by Crocker Johnson, we are witnessing the workings of Harold's imagination. Because of the peculiar metaphysics of his world, objects solve his problems when they morph from drawings into real (...) things. Harold and the Purple Crayon is a testament to the power of children's imaginations, their ability to give reality to things we adults can only dream about. The book gives us an introduction to the metaphysical distinction between real and merely imaginary things, and even criticizes one attempt to develop an account of that distinction. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: 1 2 3 4 Acknowledgment Notes.

Brian Butler Transgression: Ordinary and Otherwise _Film-Philosophy_, vol. 5 no. 22, July 2001.

Harry Allard's very engaging and popular picture book Miss Nelson Is Missing! raises an important ethical issue. The issue is whether it is morally permissible to adopt an immoral means if doing so promotes a morally good end. The book shows us how successful deceptive behavior can be and also provides with an opportunity for reflecting on why such behavior is morally wrong. So there is a lesson to be learned about the importance of approaching children's picture books armed with (...) philosophy. If a parent just reads Miss Nelson Is Missing! to a child without raising the issue of whether what Miss Nelson did was moral, the child might come away thinking that her parent approved of Miss Nelson's actions. And, if the child took this to heart, she might think that it was all right to deceive others so long as one did so for their own benefit. (shrink)