As philosophers of mind we seem to hold in common no very clear view about the relevance that work in psychology or the neurosciences may or may not have to our own favourite questions—even if we call the subject ‘philosophical psychology’. For example, in the literature we find articles on pain some of which do, some of which don't, rely more or less heavily on, for example, the work of Melzack and Wall; the puzzle cases used so extensively in discussions (...) of personal identity are drawn sometimes from the pleasant exercise of scientific fantasy, at times from surprising reports of scientific fact; and there are those who deny, as well as those who affirm, the importance of the discovery of rapid-eye-movement sleep to the philosophical treatment of dreaming. A general account of the relation between scientific, and philosophical, psychology is long overdue and of the first importance. Here I shall limit myself to just one area where the two seem to connect, discussing one type of neuropsychological research and its relevance to questions in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of psychology. (shrink)

Is the tendency to morally prioritize humans over animals weaker in children than adults? In two pre-registered studies (N = 622), 5- to 9-year-old children and adults were presented with moral dilemmas pitting varying numbers of humans against varying numbers of either dogs or pigs and were asked who should be saved. In both studies, children had a weaker tendency to prioritize humans over animals than adults. They often chose to save multiple dogs over one human, and many valued the (...) life of a dog as much as the life of a human. While they valued pigs less, the majority still prioritized ten pigs over one human. By contrast, almost all adults chose to save one human over even one hundred dogs or pigs. Our findings suggest that the common view that humans are far more morally important than animals appears late in development and is likely socially acquired. (shrink)

The paper discusses the utility of the notion of consciousness for the behavioural and brain sciences. It describes four distinctively different senses of 'conscious', and argues that to cope with the heterogeneous phenomena loosely indicated thereby, these sciences not only do not but should not discuss them in terms of 'consciousness'. It is thus suggested that 'the problem' allegedly posed to scientists by consciousness is unreal; one need neither adopt a realist stance with respect to it, nor include the term (...) and its cognates in the sciences' conceptual apparatus. The paper briefly examines Nagel's [1974] article, since this presents the strongest counter to the thesis proposed. (shrink)

Who are you to tell me what I should do? What gives you the right to order me around? How dare you call me a racist!? Many of us have heard these refrains over the course of the 2016 US Presidential campaign and since the election of Donald Trump. We try to talk to Trump supporters—family, former classmates, home-town friends, and online acquaintances—about the racism, xenophobia, sexism, transphobia, ableism, and authoritarianism that some of us have judged to be endemic to (...) his campaign and nascent administration. We try to hold them accountable for supporting him, and, almost inevitably, we meet with responses like these.In this essay, I aim to develop an understanding of these encounters by framing them as... (shrink)

Employee misconduct is prevalent in organizations and may be counterproductive in social and material terms. It is thus important to better understand how misconduct is construed by employees and the factors that determine its ethical acceptability in specific cases. This study explores attitudes towards unethical and minor deviant behaviours by examining the degree of acquiescence towards them in a sample of employees. Based on previous studies it was hypothesized that both organizational commitment and job satisfaction would be negatively related to (...) the acceptance of such behaviours in organizational settings. Results show that there is a relationship between the degree of acquiescence and organizational commitment and a more modest relationship with job satisfaction. They further indicate that organizational tenure impacts very significantly on the degree of acceptance. Although differences were found for age, neither gender nor organizational variables were found to be significant. (shrink)

Recent work in the philosophy of science has been debunking theory and acclaiming practice. Recent work in philosophical psychology has been neglecting practice and emphasizing theory, suggesting that common?sense psychology is in all essential respects like any scientific theory. The marriage of these two strands of thought would serve to make science and common sense virtually indistinguishable. My paper resists this conflation. The main target is the attempt to assimilate everyday psychology to a scientific theory; I argue that this is (...) badly mistaken, and does a disservice both to scientific and to common?sense psychology. A secondary aim is to argue that some of the new pragmatism in the philosophy of science is overstated. The suggested conflation would have interesting implications, as would its denial; in a concluding section, some of these implications are briefly explored. (shrink)

The medieval Englishman, John of Salisbury, was a philosopher and humanist, theologian and bishop, courtier and diplomat, poet and political thinker. This book provides a reassessment of his life and work. It features 25 papers by international scholars.

The Song of Songs, a lyric cycle of love scenes without a narrative plot, has often been considered as the Bible’s most beautiful and enigmatic book. The present study questions the still dominant exegetical convention that merges all of the Song’s voices into the dialogue of a single couple, its composite heroine Shulamit being a projection screen for norms of womanhood. An alternative socio-spatial reading, starting with the Hebrew text’s strophic patterns and its references to historical realia, explores the poem’s (...) artful alternation between courtly, urban, rural, and pastoral scenes with their distinct characters. The literary construction of social difference juxtaposes class-specific patterns of consumption, mobility, emotion, power structures, and gender relations. This new image of the cycle as a detailed poetic frieze of ancient society eventually leads to a precise hypothesis concerning its literary and religious context in the Hellenistic age, as well as its geographical origins in the multiethnic borderland east of the Jordan. In a Jewish echo of anthropological skepticism, the poem emphasizes the plurality and relativity of the human condition while praising the communicative powers of pleasure, fantasy, and multifarious Eros. (shrink)

Successful transitions to a sustainable bioeconomy require novel technologies, processes, and practices as well as a general agreement about the overarching normative direction of innovation. Both requirements necessarily involve collective action by those individuals who purchase, use, and co-produce novelties: the consumers. Based on theoretical considerations borrowed from evolutionary innovation economics and consumer social responsibility, we explore to what extent consumers’ scope of action is addressed in the scientific bioeconomy literature. We do so by systematically reviewing bioeconomy-related publications according to (...) the extent to which consumers are regarded as passive vs. active, and different domains of consumer responsibility. We find all aspects of active consumption considered to varying degrees but observe little interconnection between domains. In sum, our paper contributes to the bioeconomy literature by developing a novel coding scheme that allows us to pinpoint different aspects of consumer activity, which have been considered in a rather isolated and undifferentiated manner. Combined with our theoretical considerations, the results of our review reveal a central research gap which should be taken up in future empirical and conceptual bioeconomy research. The system-spanning nature of a sustainable bioeconomy demands an equally holistic exploration of the consumers’ prospective and shared responsibility for contributing to its coming of age, ranging from the procurement of information on bio-based products and services to their disposal. (shrink)

Over these few short pages, I should like to offer you a brief introduction, or rather, a lengthy invitation, to an emerging field of scientific study. Rather than attempt, impossibly, to convey the richness of the tapestry, and its significance, I shall confine myself instead to drawing your attention to just a few of the threads running through it, and say a little about why I think these threads worth pursuing.

A general hypothesis of atom size effects for G.P. zone formation is discussed in this paper and results are presented of precipitation in the systems Fe-Au and Fe-Mo. Techniques used are resistivity measurements and electron microscopy. In the Fe-Mo system it is shown that after initial cluster formation during the early stages of ageing after the quench, further growth ceases and vacancies anneal out into dislocation loops. The activation energy for the initial clustering was 1·3 ev whilst the excess vacancy (...) concentration estimated from the loop area gave a vacancy formation energy of ∼1·5 ev. These results confirm recent quenching results on pure iron. The refusal of Mo zones to grow confirms the general hypothesis of size effects.In the Fe-Au system precipitation of gold platelets after quenching is shown to be associated with the high density of dislocations formed during quenching through the phase transformation of the iron matrix. The effect of the dislocations is shown by the low value of ∼0·5 for the Johnson—Mehl kinetic parameter and by the activation energy for growth which is ∼0·8 of the equilibrium diffusion energy for Au in Fe. As the size-effect hypothesis does not apply to precipitation on dislocations the growth of zones in Fe—Au does not affect its validity. (shrink)

Through analysis of film sequences focusing on DNA in two British Broadcasting Corporation nonfiction science television programs, Wonders of Life and Bang! Goes the Theory, first broadcast in 2013, contrasting “religious” and “secular” representations of science are identified. In the “religious” portrayal, immutable scientific knowledge is revealed to humanity by nature with minimal human intervention. Science provides a creation story, “explanatory omnicompetence,” and makes life existentially meaningful. In the “secular” portrayal, scientific knowledge is changeable; is produced through technical skill in (...) expert communities; and is ambiguous, potentially positive and negative for society. Television representations of science affect audience understandings, and this is particularly the case for nonfiction representations of science, as they are likely to be “taken more seriously” than fictional representations. The consequences of the “religious” representation of science are discussed, and it is argued that a widespread understanding of science as presented in the religious portrayal would negatively impact democracy. (shrink)

Correspondence should be addressed to David A. Leopold [email protected] the viewing of certain patterns, widely known as ambiguous or puzzle figures, perception lapses into a sequence of spontaneous alternations, switching every few seconds between two or more visual interpretations of the stimulus. Although their nature and origin remain topics of debate, these stochastic switches are generally thought to be the automatic and inevitable consequence of viewing a pattern without a unique solution. We report here that in humans such perceptual alternations (...) can be slowed, and even brought to a standstill, if the visual stimulus is periodically removed from view. We also show, with a visual illusion, that this stabilizing effect hinges on perceptual disappearance rather than on actual removal of the stimulus. These findings indicate that uninterrupted subjective perception of an ambiguous pattern is required for the initiation of the brain-state changes underlying multistable vision.Visual perception involves coordination between sensory sampling of the world and active interpretation of the sensory data. Human perception of objects and scenes is normally stable and robust, but it falters when one is presented with patterns that are inherently ambiguous or contradictory. Under such conditions, vision lapses into a chain of continually alternating percepts, whereby a viable visual interpretation dominates for a few seconds and is then replaced by a rival interpretation. This multistable vision, or 'multistability', is thought to result from destabilization of fundamental visual mechanisms, and has offered valuable insights into how sensory patterns are actively organized and interpreted in the brain1, 2. Despite a great deal of recent research and interest in multistable perception, however, its neurophysiological underpinnings remain poorly understood. Physiological studies have suggested that disambiguation of ambiguous patterns. (shrink)

In Tough Choices for Teachers: Ethical Challenges in Today's Schools and Classrooms, Infantino and Wilke help student teachers, new teachers, and experienced teachers think more deeply about ethical concerns. The case studies included by the authors involve ethical dilemmas dealing with honesty, integrity, and proper professional behavior.

This discussion contributes to the ongoing debates regarding the (re)sexualisation of female bodies in popular and visual culture. Visual texts display the upper middle-class white female as the carrier of mainstream neo-liberal values in Western societies, and the success of this approach is the twinning of the culture of individualism, self-interest and market values with feminist vocabularies; namely, choice, freedom and independence. Drawing on a broad feminist scholarship that includes discussions on the influence of the HBO series Sex and the (...) City, semiotic analysis is combined with intersectionality to gain an understanding of how gender, class and sexuality shape and reinforce whiteness as entitled to luxury in an advertising campaign for Michael Kors luxury goods. Contemporary representations have expanded to include representations of affluent women who appear to have it all. These new post-feminist subjectivities promote an aesthetic of wealth, to display privileged whiteness, heterosexuality, normative Western beauty ideals and individualism. An intersectional approach reveals the apparent neutrality of neo-liberal values as being an expression of whiteness, specifically in representations of white women as economically independent neo-liberal subjects who display their status through the conspicuous consumption of luxury brands. (shrink)

Karol Wojtyła—the future pope John Paul II—chose the human being, especially in its personalistic dimension, as the main point of his philosophical research. Inaccordance with the metaphysical rule agere sequitur esse, he investigated the dynamisms proper to a human being: the reactive dynamism of the human body, the emotive dynamism of the human psyche, and the personalistic dynamism associated with free choice of the will. These allowed him to experience and understand the human being as a complex yet integrated entity. (...) The personal structure of the human being is manifest in terms of selfpossession, self-determination, and self-governance. Thanks to self-possession, human beings experience freedom of the will, which expresses itself in each free act. Being endowed with a free will, the human being is able to grow in freedom but can also lose his freedom. Wojtyła’s philosophical investigations are innovative by way of the use that he made of the philosophy of being according to Thomas Aquinas and the philosophy of consciousness articulated by Husserl. He not only pointed out man’s structure but also presented man as an objective entity in an objective world. Each human being is constituted by his or her inner self, which is absolutely exceptional because it is completely irreducible to anything else in the world. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal, Marc Champagne leveled an argument against what Wilfrid Sellars dubbed “the Myth of the Given.” Champagne contends that what is given in observation in the form of a sensation must be able to both cause and justify propositionally structured beliefs. He argues for this claim by attempting to show that one cannot decide which of two equally valid chains of inference is sound without appeal to what is given in experience. In this note, (...) I show that while this argument is sound, the conclusion he draws is far too strong. Champagne’s argument shows only that our empirical beliefs are determined through experience. It does not license the stronger claim that, in order for us to have empirical knowledge, bare sensations must be able to justify beliefs. (shrink)

It is notorious that Aristotle gives two distinct and seemingly irreconcilable versions of man's eudaimonia in the Nicomachean Ethics. These offer conflicting accounts not only of what the good man should do, but also of what it is good for a man to do. This paper discusses the incompatibility of these two pictures of eudaimonia, and explores the extent to which the notions of 'the life of a good man' and 'the life good for a man' can be successfully united (...) in a single concept of eudaimonia. (shrink)

On several critical occasions in his philosophical and theological musings, we find Abelard having recourse to what is at heart the same philosophical simile -- in one instance drawing comparison to a stone statue, in another to a bronze statue, in a third to a wax image. The common point of comparison is obvious; each of these examples gives us a case where some physical material has come to receive some manner of shape. The doctrine illustrated by these means is (...) not, as might be supposed, a conventional Aristotelian form/matter metaphysics. (shrink)

In contemporary American cinema, the representation of women remains disproportionately limited despite significant social movements advocating for diversity and equality. This study examines the depiction of women in top-grossing films of 2018, contrasting those directed by men with those directed by women, to understand the influence of gender dynamics on cinematic portrayal. Analyzing the top five highest-grossing live-action movies directed by each gender, this research utilizes critical mass and critical actor theories to evaluate the impact of female filmmakers on the (...) representation of women both on and off-screen. Findings reveal that films directed by women feature higher percentages of female characters and crew members in key roles, yet face substantial budgetary and box office disparities compared to their male-directed counterparts. Despite some progress, the film industry continues to exhibit systemic biases, necessitating further structural changes to achieve genuine gender equality in cinematic storytelling. This study underscores the need for increased opportunities and resources for female filmmakers to foster a more inclusive and diverse cinematic landscape. (shrink)

O presente artigo insere-se no contexto do Programa de Mestrado Profissional (PROF-FILO UFABC) e articula parte da discussão feita na dissertação. Seu objetivo é correlacionar o avanço das Tecnologias Digitais de Informação e Comunicação e o enfraquecimento das Democracias Liberais do Ocidente, tendo como pano de fundo a governamentalidade algorítmica. Em um primeiro momento, a partir do conceito de governamentalidade do filósofo francês Michel Foucault faremos um diálogo com os pensadores alemães Ulrich Beck e Jürgen Habermas, discutindo de que forma (...) foram criados atalhos decisórios fora dos processos políticos no âmbito do conhecimento tecnocientífico alinhado aos interesses do Capital. Em um segundo momento, enquanto consequência desses atalhos, será abordado o risco que a hegemonia oligopolista das Big Techs traz para a vida social através de uma nova governamentalidade, agora algorítmica, em diálogo com as pensadoras Shoshana Zuboff e Antoinette Rouvroy. Essa nova governamentalidade, cujo foco deixa de ser a produção de corpos dóceis e úteis e passa a ter como alvo a construção de subjetividades via psicopolítica – conceito do filósofo sul-coreano Byung-Chul Han – tem como subprodutos não apenas as Fakenews, ou a possibilidade de disseminação ideológica extremista que tem ameaçado a democracia, mas uma franca queda no caráter deliberativo na formação da opinião pública, afetando também a qualidade da democracia. Por fim, refletimos sobre possíveis alternativas e antídotos para a situação atual em que nos encontramos, recorrendo ao conceito de cosmotécnica do filósofo chinês Yuk Hui. (shrink)

THE SCHOLARLY LITERATURE on Aquinas' De aeternitate mundi is considerable; the controversy which has spawned it seems to have involved two major points of dispute. First there is the problem of dating the work; while some commentators believe it to have been written at an earlier stage in Aquinas' career--in the 1250s--the majority view is that it is a much later work, written in the early 1270s. Second, there is the problem of the continuity of doctrine between this work and (...) the other texts Aquinas has left us on the issue of the world's temporal duration. Does he propose the same position in all, or does De aeternitate mundi represent a departure? These two points of dispute come together when scholars discuss the historical context of this work. Thomas Bukowski sees it as an early defence of an unchanging position against the attacks of Bonaventure; Ignatius Brady sees it as a late defence of an unchanging position against the attacks of John Pecham. John Wippel, by contrast, takes it as a late departure from a previous view, and James Weisheipl, concurring with Wippel, attributes this change to Aquinas' study of Aristotle's Physics in the period before his second Paris regency. (shrink)