We present a meta-analytic review on the processing of negations in conditional reasoning about affirmation problems (Modus Ponens: "MP", Affirmation of the Consequent "AC") and denial problems (Denial of the Antecedent "DA", and Modus Tollens "MT"). Findings correct previous generalisations about the phenomena. First, the effects of negation in the part of the conditional about which an inference is made, are not constrained to denial problems. These inferential-negation effects are also observed on AC. Second, there generally are reliable effects of (...) a negation in the clause referred to by the categorical premise, and these referred-negation effects are constrained to the logically fallacious AC and DA inferences. All findings are presented and discussed in relation to contemporary mental model (MM) and mental logic (ML) theories. It is argued that a double-negation elimination hypothesis provides a sufficient explanation of inferential-negation effects within both MM theory and ML theory, if the latter is extended by a validating search for counter examples. Both MM and ML theories adhere to a processing scheme that allows them to incorporate an account of referred-negation effects based on the thesis that counter-example frequency is modulated by the scope of a contrast class delineated by a false affirmative. We conclude that MM and ML theories provide adequate processing schemes to accommodate for the explanatory hypotheses, at least in principle. In practice, both approaches remain equivocal as regards the connectivity and interactivity with long-term memory knowledge invoked in generating, manipulating, and testing the mental representations of negative state of affairs. (shrink)

We present a meta-analytic review on the processing of negations in conditional reasoning about affirmation problems (Modus Ponens: “MP”, Affirmation of the Consequent “AC”) and denial problems (Denial of the Antecedent “DA”, and Modus Tollens “MT”). Findings correct previous generalisations about the phenomena. First, the effects of negation in the part of the conditional about which an inference is made, are not constrained to denial problems. These inferential-negation effects are also observed on AC. Second, there generally are reliable effects of (...) a negation in the clause referred to by the categorical premise, and these referred-negation effects are constrained to the logically fallacious AC and DA inferences. All findings are presented and discussed in relation to contemporary mental model (MM) and mental logic (ML) theories. It is argued that a double-negation elimination hypothesis provides a sufficient explanation of inferential-negation effects within both MM theory and ML theory, if the latter is extended by a validating search for counter examples. Both MM and ML theories adhere to a processing scheme that allows them to incorporate an account of referred-negation effects based on the thesis that counter-example frequency is modulated by the scope of a contrast class delineated by a false affirmative. We conclude that MM and ML theories provide adequate processing schemes to accommodate for the explanatory hypotheses, at least in principle. In practice, both approaches remain equivocal as regards the connectivity and interactivity with long-term memory knowledge invoked in generating, manipulating, and testing the mental representations of negative state of affairs. (shrink)

In Interfaces of the World, Walter J. Ong explores the effects on consciousness of the word as it moves through oral to written to print and electronic culture.

Terry Lectures. A religious philosopher's exploration of the nature and history of the word argues that the word is initially and always sound, that it cannot be reduced to any other category, and that sound is essentially an event manifesting power and personal presence. His analysis of the development of verbal expression, from oral sources through the transfer to the visual world and to contemporary means of electronic communication, shows that the predicament of the human word is the predicament of (...) man himself. (shrink)

According to behavioural theories deriving from pragmatism, gestalt psychology, existentialism, and ecopsychology, knowledge about the world is gained by intentional action followed by learning. In terms of the neurodynamics described here, if the intending of an act comes to awareness through reafference, it is perceived as a cause. If the consequences of an act come to awareness through proprioception and exteroception, they are perceived as an effect. A sequence of such states of awareness comprises consciousness, which can grow in complexity (...) to include self-awareness. Intentional acts do not require awareness, whereas voluntary acts require self-awareness. Awareness of the action/perception cycle provides the cognitive metaphor of linear causality as an agency. Humans apply this metaphor to objects and events in the world to predict and control them, and to assign social responsibility. Thus, linear causality is the bedrock of technology and social contracts. Complex material systems with distributed non-linear feedback, such as brains and their neural and behavioural activities, cannot be explained by linear causality. They can be said to operate by circular causality without agency. The nature of self-control is described by breaking the circle into a forward limb, the intentional self, and a feedback limb, awareness of the self and its actions. The two limbs are realized through hierarchically stratified kinds of neural activity. Intentional acts are produced by the self-organized microscopic neural activity of cortical and subcortical components in the brain. Awareness supervenes as a macroscopic ordering state, that defers action until the self-organizing microscopic process has reached closure in reflective prediction. Agency, which is removed from the causal hierarchy by the appeal to circularity, re-appears as a metaphor by which events in the world are anthropomorphized, making them appear subject to human control. (shrink)

[opening paragraph]: Walter Freeman discusses with Jean Burns some of the issues relating to consciousness in his recent book. Burns: To understand consciousness we need know its relationship to the brain, and to do that we need to know how the brain processes information. A lot of people think of brain processing in terms of individual neurons, and you're saying that brain processing should be understood in terms of dynamical states of populations?

Study of electroencephalographic brain activity in behaving animals has guided development of a model for the self-organization of goal-directed behavior. Synthesis of a dynamical representation of brain function is based in the concept of intentionality as the organizing principle of animal and human behavior. The constructions of patterns of brain activity constitute meaning and not information or representations. The three accepted meanings of intention: "aboutness," goal-seeking, and wound healing, can be incorporated into the dynamics of meaningful behavior, centered in the (...) limbic system interacting with the sensory and motor systems. Evidence is noted for the maintenance in cortical neuropil of a felt work of synaptic connections, that have incorporated past experience by changes in learning, and that act as a unified whole in shaping each intentional action at each moment. This constitutes the intentional structure of the brain. Meaning is a focus having a place without edges in this structure. The focus continually moves through it along a chaotic trajectory; the meaning occupies the whole structure. In this view, consciousness is the active state of an intentional structure, and awareness is the subjective aspect of the shifting focus. (shrink)

Some argue that at least some non-liberal, non-democratic societies deserve fiill and good standing in the international community. These arguments imply that some divergence in understanding the role of the press is also justified and should be tolerated. But what are the limits of diversity here? I begin to find these limits by considering John Rawls's "decent" societies in the context of Amartya Sen's work on famine. Sen claims that a free press plays an important role in famine prevention. After (...) giving an account of press rights, I argue that a partially free press can play the role Sen attributes to the free press. I then argue that decent societies could and should accommodate such partially free presses. (shrink)

The following paper is a modified version of Ihe Edward S. O’Donnell, S.J., Distinguished Lecture, delivered at Marquette University in November of 1986, The original title of the lecture was, “The Fare of Theology 1986, or the Painful Process of Doctrinal Development.” Following a historical exegesis of the notion of responsibility for theologians. I offer a summary of dominant factors underlying the issue of doctrinal development in theology, and conclude with some recommendations relating to the present tasks facing theologians.

On the moderate view, an objecting pharmacist may refuse to fill a prescription, provided that the pharmacist then refers the client to a non-objecting pharmacist who will fill the prescription in a timely manner (see, e.g., Cantor and Baum, 2004, or Brock, 2008). This view seeks to balance the interests of the pharmacist and the interests of the client. The complicity objection holds that the moderate view fails to balance these interests, because the referral itself makes the objecting pharmacist complicit (...) in the act she sought to stop or at least avoid (see, e.g., Brock, 2008, Card, 2007, Charo, 2005, Nelson 2005, Snyder, 2010, Wicclair, 2006). Some claim that this objection shows that an objecting pharmacist should not be required to refer the client to another pharmacist. But what are the limits of the complicity objection? For example, does the complicity objection imply that an objecting pharmacist should also refuse to return the prescription to the client? I argue that the complicity objection has this implication. This does not mean that pharmacists should confiscate prescriptions. My goal is just to examine the moral reach of the complicity objection to the moderate position. What we should do, once we recognize the reach of this objection, is a separate question that I do not take up here. (shrink)

Considered the most important work of Walter Ong's career, Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue is an elegant review of the history of Ramist scholarship ...

“Decortication” does not distinguish between removing all cerebral cortex, including three-layered allocortex or just six-layered neocortex. Functional decortication, by spreading depression, reversibly suppresses only neocortex, leaving minimal intentionality. Removal of all forebrain structures except a hypothalamic “island” blocks all intentional behaviors, leaving only tropisms. To what extent do Merker's examples retain allocortex, and how might such residues affect his interpretations? (Published Online May 1 2007).

Recurrent excitation is experimentally well documented in cortical populations. It provides for intracortical excitatory biases that linearize negative feedback interactions and induce macroscopic state transitions during perception. The concept of the local neighborhood should be expanded to spatial patterns as the basis for perception, in which large areas of cortex are bound into cooperative behavior with near-silent columns as important as active columns revealed by unit recording.