At one time, specialized health privacy laws represented the bulk of the rules regulating genetic privacy, Today, however, as both the field of genomics and the content of privacy law change rapidly, a new generation of general-purpose privacy laws may impose new restrictions on collection, storage, and disclosure of genetic data. This article surveys these laws and considers implications.

Shape and slant judgments of rotated or frontoparallel ellipses were elicited from three groups of 10 subjects. A masking stimulus was introduced to control processing time. Backward masking trials were presented with interstimulus intervals of 0, 25, and 50 msec, Reduction of processing time altered shape judgments in the direction of projective shape and slant judgments in the direction of frontoparallelness. This finding is consistent with the shape-slant invariance hypothesis. In order to study the effects of processing load, one group (...) of subjects was given prior knowledge of the kind of judgment to be made on each trial, one group had no prior knowledge, and a third group made both judgments on each trial. The effects of the processing load manipulation were interpreted in terms of the role of attention in perceptual encoding. Consistent with previous findings, allocation of attention did not affect perceptual encoding. (shrink)

Psychological constructivist models of emotion propose that emotions arise from the combinations of multiple processes, many of which are not emotion specific. These models attempt to describe both the homogeneity of instances of an emotional “kind” (why are fears similar?) and the heterogeneity of instances (why are different fears quite different?). In this article, we review the iterative reprocessing model of affect, and suggest that emotions, at least in part, arise from the processing of dynamical unfolding representations of valence across (...) time. Critical to this model is the hypothesis that affective trajectories—over time—provide important information that helps build emotional states. (shrink)

Terence Parsons's informal theory of intentional objects, their properties, and modes of predication does not adequately reflect ordinary ways of speaking and thinking. Meinongian theories recognizing two modes of predication are defended against Parsons's theory of two kinds of properties. Against Parsons's theory of fictional objects, I argue that no existing entities appear in works of fiction. A formal version of Parsons's theory is presented, and a curious consequence about modes of predication is indicated.

Traditionally, identity and supervenience have been proposed in philosophy of mind as metaphysical accounts of how mental activities (fully understood, as they might be at the end of science) relate to brain processes. Kievet et al. suggest that to be relevant to cognitive neuroscience, these philosophical positions must make empirically testable claims and be evaluated accordingly – they cannot sit on the sidelines, awaiting the hypothetical completion of cognitive neuroscience. We agree with the authors on the importance of rendering these (...) positions relevant to ongoing science. We disagree, however, with their proposal that a metaphysical relationship (identity or supervenience) should “serve as a means to conceptually organize and guide the analysis of neurological and behavioral data” (p. 7). Instead, we advance a different view of the goals of cognitive neuroscience and of the proper means of relating metaphysics and explanation. Our central objection to the psychometric approach deployed by Kievet et al. is that the formal models only account for correlations between variables (measurements) and do not aid in explaining phenomena. Cognitive neuroscience is concerned with the latter. We develop this point in section 2 in which we present what we find to be problematic in their proposed models. In section 3 we advance an account of what is required to explain phenomena: (a) providing an adequate description of a phenomenon; and (b) characterizing the mechanism responsible for it. In doing so we will characterize a version of the identity theory, heuristic identity theory (HIT) which figures centrally in developing such explanations and illustrate its role in what we take to.. (shrink)

The nature of consciouness or human awareness is one of the problems of perennial concern to philosphers and psychologists alike. Here is a systematic critical and comparative study the nature of human awareness according to the most influential school of classical Indian thought. After introducing the Advaita Philosophical system and indicating the place of consciouness in this system the author presents a detailed discussion of the Advaitin`s unique non-dual understanding of man`s basic intelligence. He continues with and analysis of the (...) Advaitin`s hierarchical vision of waking dream and dreamless sleep experience and compares this analysi,. (shrink)

Hacking argues against van Fraassen's constructive empiricism by appeal to features of microscopic imaging. Hacking relies on both our practices involving imaging instruments and the structure of the images produced by these micropractices. Van Fraassen's reply is formally correct yet fundamentally unsatisfying. I aim to strengthen van Fraassen's reply, but must then extend constructive empiricism, specifically the central notion of "theoretical immersion." I argue that immersion is more analogous to entering a virtual reality than to learning a language. This metaphor (...) assimilates instrument-based practice as well as theoretical debate and explanation, and can provide an anti-realist view of our micro-practices consonant with constructive empiricism. (shrink)

This book argues that Cicero deserves to be spoken of with more respect and to be studied with greater care. Using Plato’s influence on Cicero’s life and writings as a clue, Altman reveals the ineffable combination of qualities—courage, originality, intelligence, sparkling wit, subtlety, deep respect for his teacher, and deadly seriousness of purpose—that enabled Cicero not only to revive Platonism, but also to rival Plato himself.

This essay examines lines of connection between disgust, the effect of disciplines upon such intensive appraisals, political action, and the shape of ethical responsiveness. Philosophies that espouse purity in moral ity or politics mask these lines of connection; they thereby disparage the sig nificance of techniques of the self to ethical and political life. Immanuel Kant and Hannah Arendt provide the two main figures through whom these themes are explored. Arendt and Kant are brought into relation with each other through (...) the way each comes to terms with disgust and common sense. Kant's attempt to purify morality draws upon the spontaneity of common sense even more than it does upon a set of transcendental arguments. The Kantian metaphysic of the supersensible and the sensible then authorizes a concept of morality that almost removes the will beyond the reach of disci plines. But aporias he confronts within the will may bring these tactics back in. Arendt, while rising above the command conception of morality pro jected by Kant through her invocation of gratitude for being and appre ciation of new beginnings, reinstates purity in the concept of 'the political'. Arendt's drive to bracket the body - often treated as an assemblage of com pulsive moods and interests - from the realm of ethical and political life also disparages tactics by the self on the self. To challenge the metaphysic of the supersensible and the sensible with a metaphysic of the infrasensible and the sensible is to confirm the nobility of such tactics. The presentation of this alternative perspective calls into question the pretension of many contemporaries to be 'post-metaphysical'; it also helps to show why meta physical pluralism sets a condition for a politics of plurality attuned to the velocity and scope of late-modern life. Key Words: amygdala • Arendt • body • common sense • Deleuze • ethics • Kant • metaphysics • plurality • Spinoza. (shrink)

The Sustained Attention to Response Task is a Go–No-Go signal detection task developed to measure lapses of sustained conscious attention. In this study, we examined the impact global interference and spatial uncertainty has on SART performance. Ten participants performed either a SART or a traditionally formatted version of a global–local stimuli detection task with spatially certain and uncertain signals. Reaction time in the SART was insensitive to global interference and spatial uncertainty, whereas reaction time in the low-Go task was sensitive. (...) Spatial uncertainty increased errors of omission in the SART, which was not expected if the SART measures mindlessness. There was a high correlation between participants’ errors of commission rate and their reaction time in the SART. The results, overall, support the view that the SART is a better measure of response strategy than lapses in sustained attention or mindlessness. (shrink)

It is common in attempts to extend the theory of evolution to culture to generalize from the causal basis of biological evolution, so that evolutionary theory becomes the theory of copying processes. Generalizing from the formal dynamics of evolution allows greater leeway in what kinds of things cultural entities can be, if they are to evolve. By understanding the phenomenon of cultural transmission in terms of coordinated phenotypic variability, we can have a theory of cultural evolution which allows us to (...) avoid the various difficulties with the elaboration of informational entities such as the cultural replicator, or meme. Such an account is a boon to the project of evolutionary epistemology since it confirms the presumption in favor of the general adaptiveness of culture, illuminating rather than obscuring the inherent intimacy of our relationship to (e.g.) our ideas. (shrink)

Zeno's challenge to the usual mathematical characterization of extension is still with us. Butchvarov, considering the limits of ontological analysis, writes, “I shall not explore [the decision to accept the infinite regress in which the pursuit of the analytical ideal is involved], beyond noting that the infinite divisibility of space is the reductio ad absurdum of any attempt to understand space in terms of its ultimate, simple parts.” Grünbaum states this problem, commonly known as the Measure Paradox, concisely, “[How can (...) one conceive] of an extended continuum as an aggregate of unextended elements?”. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have defended the view that mental or psychological verbs share a certain distinctive logical feature, though there is disagreement as to exactly what feature it is. Harold Morick has recently accused several of these philosophers of having “ignored or misinterpreted” verbs of a certain kind, in their search for this characteristic trait of mental verbs.The verbs he is talking about are those that represent some of a person's activities, which are physical activities but which that person (...) must allegedly be conscious in order to perform. Since a “basic sentence” containing such a verb typically entails the existence of its object's referent, Morick contends, the verb in question fails io count as “intentional” either on Brentano's definition, on Chisholm's, or on mine. Thus, Brentano, Chisholm and I have failed to make good our claim that all mental or psychological verbs are intentional. (shrink)

The question, “Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?” is logically identical to the question, “Does the chimpanzee have a soul?” It is a peculiarity of our culture that we talk about anyone having a mind, and such talk is unhelpful for a science of behavior. The label “killjoy hypothesis” is an ad hominem attack.

ExcerptNow a century old, Carl Schmitt’s The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy still provides useful training for historians in the necessary task of making distinctions between “liberalism” and “democracy,” two movements that arose with overlapping but distinct core principles in eighteenth-century Europe, often competed with each other, and sometimes came into bloody conflict. Schmitt makes one highly controversial assertion, however, near the beginning of this book. After agreeing with Alexis de Tocqueville that the spread of democracy was the most powerful political (...) trend of the nineteenth century, a trend that became almost irresistible,1 Schmitt declares that there is a crucial flaw in the argument of Jean-Jacques Rousseau that exposes a major problem with democratic theory in general. Democracy has taken so many different forms, according to Schmitt, that it can only be defined according to the basic principle that political decisions are only binding for those who participated in making them. This belief presupposes “that the will of the outvoted minority is in truth identical with the will of the majority. Rousseau’s frequently cited arguments in the Contrat social are fundamental [emphasis added] for democratic thought and ultimately conform to an old tradition.”2 Schmitt refers here to Rousseau’s argument in On the Social Contract (book IV, ch. 2) that if the proposition you supported fails to gain a majority in a referendum, you should acknowledge that you had been mistaken when you voted, because the question posed to citizens was not exactly whether they personally approved of the proposition, but “whether or not it conforms to the general will that is theirs.”3 Schmitt observes caustically that “with this Jacobin logic one can, it is well known, justify the rule of a minority over the majority, even while appealing to democracy.” The first democratic movement of the modern era, the Levellers in the English Civil War, had already attempted this, Schmitt argues, when they proclaimed in 1649 that only the “well-affected” deserved the right to vote in parliamentary elections.4 Schmitt concludes that democracy is therefore highly vulnerable to the emergence of dictatorship, and that the Bolsheviks had just as strong an argument in 1923 that their brutal dominion by an “enlightened” minority was truly democratic as did the Jacobins of 1793. “Theoretically, and in critical times also practically, democracy is helpless [emphasis added] before the Jacobin argument, that is, when faced with the authoritative identification of a minority as the people.” The meaning here of “authoritative identification” (entscheidenden Identifikation) is unclear; Schmitt does not seek to explain why the majority in a democracy should ever accept a minority’s claim that it alone possesses civic virtue or wisdom.5 A very similar argument about Rousseau was made nevertheless by J. L. Talmon in The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (published in 1952), which has in turn influenced some recent scholars who, like Talmon, do not acknowledge any intellectual debt to Schmitt.6. (shrink)