Krueger & Funder (K&F) spend too much time on their critique of some classic studies in social psychology. They should have spent more time developing their constructive ideas about better methodologies and, especially, better conceptual foundations for the field. We endorse their exhortation to consider social behavior in its ecologically adaptive context, and we present a few ideas of our own about how to develop a more comprehensive conceptual framework.

What are the effects of deliberation about political issues by likeminded people? An experimental investigation involving two deliberative exercises, one among self-identified liberals and another among self-identified conservatives, showed that participants' views became more extreme after deliberation. Deliberation also increased consensus and significantly reduced diversity of opinion within the two groups. Even anonymous statements of personal opinion became more extreme and homogeneous after deliberation.

What are the effects of deliberation about political issues by likeminded people? An experimental investigation involving two deliberative exercises, one among self-identified liberals and another among self-identified conservatives, showed that participants' views became more extreme after deliberation. Deliberation also increased consensus and significantly reduced diversity of opinion within the two groups. Even anonymous statements of personal opinion became more extreme and homogeneous after deliberation.

Beliefs like the Gambler's Fallacy and the Hot Hand have interested cognitive scientists, economists, and philosophers for centuries. We propose that these judgment patterns arise from the observer's mental models of the sequence-generating mechanism, moderated by the strength of belief in an a priori base rate. In six behavioral experiments, participants observed one of three mechanisms generating sequences of eight binary events: a random mechanical device, an intentional goal-directed actor, and a financial market. We systematically manipulated participants’ beliefs about the (...) base rate probabilities at which different outcomes were generated by each mechanism. Participants judged 18 sequences of outcomes produced by a mechanism with either an unknown base rate, a specified distribution of three equiprobable base rates, or a precise, fixed base rate. Six target sequences ended in streaks of between two and seven identical outcomes. The most common predictions for subsequent events were best described as pragmatic belief updating, expressed as an increasingly strong expectation that a streak of identical signals would repeat as the length of that streak increased. The exception to this pattern was for sequences generated by a random mechanical device with a fixed base rate of.50. Under this specific condition, participants exhibited a bias toward reversal of streaks, and this bias was larger when participants were asked to make a dichotomous choice versus a numerical probability rating. We review alternate accounts for the anomalous judgments of sequences and conclude with our favored interpretation that is based on Rabin's version of Tversky & Kahneman's Law of Small Numbers. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION Although the writings of Thomas Reid are very fertile and interesting, his life is biographically barren in comparison to such seventeenth - and ...

This volume brings together for the first time a significant number of Reid's manuscript papers on natural history, physiology and materialist metaphysics. An important contribution not only to Reid studies but also to our understanding of eighteenth-century science and its context.

Internalism about normative reasons is the view that an agent’s normative reasons depend on her motivational constitution. On the assumption that there are reasons for emotion I argue that externalism about reasons for emotion entails that all rational agents have reasons to be morally motivated and internalism about reasons for emotion is implausible. If the arguments are sound we can conclude that all rational agents have reasons to be morally motivated. Resisting this conclusion requires either justifying internalism about reasons for (...) emotion in a way hitherto unarticulated or giving up on reasons for emotion altogether. (shrink)

"In thinking about music it is difficult to avoid representing any concrete instance as if it were a stable and essentially pre-formed entity composed of fully determinate and ultimately static objects or relations. Certainly, in the actual performance of music there is no escaping the contingency and indeterminacy that inhere in every temporal act. When we attempt to analyze the musical event, however, it is most convenient to imagine that the intricate web of relationships that comes into play on such (...) an occasion has already been woven in a prior compositional act or in a determinate and determining order of values and beliefs. We can, for example, point to the score as a fixed set of instructions for the recreation of an essentially self-same work or as a repository wherein the traces of a composer's thought lie encoded awaiting faithful decoding by a receptive performer/listener. Or, with even greater abstraction, we can point to the presence of an underlying tonal system, the governing rules of a style or "common practice," the reflection of a set of existing social relations, or the role of hardened ideologies in music's production and reception. It must be said that there is some truth in the variety of determinacies that intellectual analysis would ascribe to music (if little truth in the claims of any one perspective to speak for the whole). But it must also be said that, to the extent the abstractions of analysis deny or suppress the creativity, spontaneity, and novelty of actual musical experience, analysis will have misrepresented music's inescapably temporal nature. The challenge of taking this temporal nature into account lies in finding ways of speaking of music's very evanescence and thus of developing concepts that would capture both the determinacy and the indeterminacy of events in passage. Stated in this way, such an enterprise appears to be loaded with paradox. However, much of the paradox disappears if we can shift our attention from objects or products to process and from static being to dynamic becoming. Indeed, such a shift might provide a perspective from which the great variety of determinacies we ascribe to music could be seen as inseparable components of musical communication. ". (shrink)

Rapid industrialization with little regulation stimulated a wide array of critiques of unrestrained capitalism and grassroots movements for economic justice in Europe and North America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The idea of solidarity was pervasive throughout intellectual histories and progressive social and theological writings of that time. Solidarity as a concept was of particular importance for socialist and labor movements and the social gospelers. Eugene V. Debs, who ran five times as the Socialist Party’s candidate for (...) president of the United States and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World, is remembered today by labor organizers to have said that “solidarity is not a... (shrink)

The view that dominated the last century claims that ethical thought requires thinking of some things – e.g. pleasure, knowledge, virtue – as good “full stop,” or good simpliciter . Traditional Consequentialists, for instance, argue that moral evaluations of acts, motives, etc . are grounded in facts about the simple goodness of that which those things bring about. Similarly, some rational intuitionists think that claims about what one has reason to do are grounded in facts about what is good simpliciter (...) . Such a view gives rise to a set of semantic, metaphysical, and epistemological puzzles about the nature of good simpliciter . I argue that an Aristotelian approach to ethics reveals that ethical thought does not requires good simpliciter , that Aristotelian positions avoid charges of metaphysical and epistemological queerness, and that it gives a straightforward semantic analysis of key moral terms, e.g. morally good/bad and morally right/wrong. I then distinguish between two varieties of Aristotelianism. (shrink)

The ancient Greek word kalon can be translated as beautiful, good, noble, or fine—yet somehow it transcends any one of those concepts. In art and literature, it can apply straightforwardly to figures like Helen or Aphrodite, or enigmatically to the pais kalos: the youthful athlete that decorates so much sympotic pottery. In the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus, meanwhile, it takes on an ethical, even transcendent dimension. And yet, the thread between a beautiful painting and the Platonic form of (...) the beautiful is never completely broken. In the summer of 2018, a group of scholars from varying disciplines gathered in Siracusa, Sicily – a place of not indifferent beauty itself – to discuss the nature of to kalon in ancient Greek culture. We were especially interested in the large part of that heritage that derives from or was influenced by Western Greece – the ancient Hellenic cities of Sicily and Southern Italy. The result is a volume that considers art, literature, rhetoric, and philosophy in exploring the nature of beauty. (shrink)

Christian Metaphysics - Made in the Image of God is a book for those that seek a deeper understanding in knowing who God is, and how we as human beings relate to him physically, emotionally, and spiritually in a metaphysical way, both now and in the future.

National days often represent unifying narratives about nation-states. Recent calls for historical redress within settler-colonial nations, however, have been based on redefinitions of triumphalist historical narratives, incorporating darker histories of colonialisation’s ongoing effects. This has resulted in controversy about national days, especially in Australia (celebrated on the anniversary of British colonisation). Discussions about Australia's national day may show us if, and how, these competing historical narratives can be integrated into a unified national story. A critical discursive examination of Australian news (...) media articles demonstrated the ways historical narratives were deployed to construct competing understandings of the national day’s meaning. Analysis showed how the narrative of colonisation as a force for cultural advancement was used to justify celebrating the current date. In contrast, acknowledging and reckoning with the past was positioned as crucial to moving forward, and, correspondingly, that changing the date was necessary. Respecifying the historical narrative in this way brought together a more complex, nation-building story unifying Indigenous peoples, settlers, and newer migrants in celebrating the (new?) national day. Such reimagined national stories offer potential ‘golden futures’, but risk allowing nations to continue to avoid reckoning with their dark histories, and, especially, the connection of these to present-day inequalities. (shrink)

The main discourse on Islamic art in the western academia primarily views Islamic art through the lens of art history and sociology of art. Islamic art is considered as sacred in Islamic civilisation and culture, and derives its sanctity from the Quran as the fountain from which it has emanated, which Muslims consider to be the Word of God, much like Christ is the Word of God in Christianity. The Quran has played a formative role in shaping the trinity of (...) sacred Islamic art which is Quranic recitation, calligraphy and architecture. However, another approach which not only is viable but can be considered of great importance to the study of Islamic art, is the employment and utilisation of principles of Islamic philosophy and Sufism which were the pillars of the intellectual milieu in which a given work of art is produced. The application of such principles allows a more comprehensive and detailed interpretation of a work of art. In this paper, the primary Islamic philosophy and sufi doctrines that will be discussed are the concepts of imagination, colour, and calligraphy and examples of their application in the khānqāh and shrine ensemble of Shaykh Ṣafi al-Din Ardabīlī in Ardabil, Iran. (shrink)

Conception has a prominent role to play in Thomas Reid’s philosophy of mind, as is apparent from his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (EIP henceforth). The present investigation concerns Reid’s explanation of how objects (be they real or nonexistent) are conceived. According to him, conception functions in two different ways: it is either an ingredient in another act of thinking, such as perception or memory, or it is exercised by itself, sometimes about objects that do not (...) (and will never) exist. Fictional objects can be remembered, but to do so the mind needs an initial, independent grip on them, which can only be achieved by an exercise of “bare conception”. (shrink)

However, as in other disciplines, academic recognition can in turn entrench static and powerful meta-theories and narratives about professional ethos and ...

This article is currently available as a free download on ingentaconnect.

Disasters arising from natural hazards affect millions of people every year, killing tens of thousands and causing major economics losses. They disproportionately affect poor people and poor countries and are a threat to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. A root cause is the vulnerability of communities to natural hazards, often associated with poverty, social and economic disadvantage, environmental exploitation, and insufficient awareness, information, and political interest. Too often, disaster risk is not factored into planning and management, despite the (...) ready availability of the necessary knowledge, tools and policy frameworks to reduce the risks. Moreover it is likely that global warning will increase the number and intensity of hazard events in future. Recognizing these issues, in 2005 Governments agreed on the landmark Hyogo Framework for Action, which seeks to achieve a substantial reduction in disaster losses by 2015. Progress is slow, however, and a greatly scaled-up effort will be needed to achieve this outcome and to avoid an unnecessarily risky and dangerous future for the countless communities worldwide. (shrink)

John Selden: Measures of the Holy Commonwealth in Seventeenth-Century England is the first text in over a century to examine the whole of Selden's works and thought. Reid Barbour brings a new perspective to Selden studies by stressing Selden's strong commitment to a 'religious society,' by taking a closer and more sustained look at his poetic interests, and by systematically examining his Latin publications. Offering critical close readings of Selden's oeuvre, Barbour posits that the overriding aim of Selden's career (...) was to bolster religious society in the face of its imminent demise. He argues that Selden's scholarly career was committed to resolving an essentially religious question about how best to establish the holy commonwealth in both lawfulness and spiritual abundance. Perhaps the greatest strength of Barbour's analysis emerges from his overall interpretation of Selden's corpus within the context of what the author calls a "religious society"; this approach emphasizes the religious commitments of Selden and subverts earlier readings of him as a cynical, skeptical, secular thinker who attacked, rather than upheld, a Judeo-Christian model of society. Engaging in style and substantive in analysis, Barbour's John Selden will add considerably to the limited body of work on this important seventeenth-century savant. (shrink)