Abstract Employing an extended case method ethnography (Burawoy 1998), the researcher joined five new members forming a spiritualist's group under the leadership of an experienced advocate. Over a period of eighteen months, the researcher attended all the group's activities and events. Data were collected to reflexively interrogate the process theory of conversion proposed by Lewis Rambo (1993). The data revealed conversion to be a multifaceted and dynamic process of cognitive change, mediated by structural, and contextual forces. The results provide a (...) reconceptualization of Rambo's theory, presenting a theoretical expansion of the model emphasizing its mechanisms of action. The paper details the composition of the “Interaction-Commitment” mechanism, operationalized within four submechanisms emanating from Rambo's roles, rituals, rhetoric, and relationships. This longitudinal study shows that most of the hard work toward conversion occurs before any formal interaction with a conversion advocate. Conversion operates most effectively under conditions of cognitive economy wherein the belief path follows a path of least cognitive expenditure. (shrink)

Animal and plant species exhibit an astonishing diversity of sexual systems, including environmental and genetic determinants of sex, with the latter including genetic material in the mitochondrial genome. In several hermaphroditic plants for example, sex is determined by an interaction between mitochondrial cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) genes and nuclear restorer genes. Specifically, CMS involves aberrant mitochondrial genes that prevent pollen development and specific nuclear genes that restore it, leading to a mixture of female (male‐sterile) and hermaphroditic individuals in the population (...) (gynodioecy). Such a mitochondrial‐nuclear sex determination system is thought to be rare outside plants. Here, we present one possible case of CMS in animals. We hypothesize that the only exception to the strict maternal mtDNA inheritance in animals, the doubly uniparental inheritance (DUI) system in bivalves, might have originated as a mitochondrial‐nuclear sex‐determination system. We document and explore similarities that exist between DUI and CMS, and we propose various ways to test our hypothesis. (shrink)

BackgroundIn the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds (CAHHM) cohort, participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, heart, and abdomen, that generated incidental findings (IFs). The approach to managing these unexpected results remain a complex issue. Our objectives were to describe the CAHHM policy for the management of IFs, to understand the impact of disclosing IFs to healthy research participants, and to reflect on the ethical obligations of researchers in future MRI studies.MethodsBetween 2013 and 2019, 8252 participants (...) (mean age 58 ± 9 years, 54% women) were recruited with a follow-up questionnaire administered to 909 participants (40% response rate) at 1-year. The CAHHM policy followed a restricted approach, whereby routine feedback on IFs was not provided. Only IFs of severe structural abnormalities were reported.ResultsSevere structural abnormalities occurred in 8.3% (95% confidence interval 7.7–8.9%) of participants, with the highest proportions found in the brain (4.2%) and abdomen (3.1%). The majority of participants (97%) informed of an IF reported no change in quality of life, with 3% of participants reporting that the knowledge of an IF negatively impacted their quality of life. Furthermore, 50% reported increased stress in learning about an IF, and in 95%, the discovery of an IF did not adversely impact his/her life insurance policy. Most participants (90%) would enrol in the study again and perceived the MRI scan to be beneficial, regardless of whether they were informed of IFs. While the implications of a restricted approach to IF management was perceived to be mostly positive, a degree of diagnostic misconception was present amongst participants, indicating the importance of a more thorough consent process to support participant autonomy.ConclusionThe management of IFs from research MRI scans remain a challenging issue, as participants may experience stress and a reduced quality of life when IFs are disclosed. The restricted approach to IF management in CAHHM demonstrated a fair fulfillment of the overarching ethical principles of respect for autonomy, concern for wellbeing, and justice. The approach outlined in the CAHHM policy may serve as a framework for future research studies.Clinical trial registrationhttps://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/nct02220582. (shrink)

In part one of our analysis of the unpublished lecture materials of thomas reid relating to adam smith, The authors touched on issues of provenance, Of manuscript description and arrangement, As well as of substance concerning reid's actual comments on smith. We have now provided as authentic a reproduction as possible of the relevant manuscript materials in the birkwood collection, Aberdeen, Arguing that there is a perceptible and studied order to reid's forceful objections.

Self-knowledge is the focus of considerable attention from philosophers: Knowing Our Own Minds gives a much-needed overview of current work on the subject, bringing together new essays by leading figures. Knowledge of one's own sensations, desires, intentions, thoughts, beliefs, and other attitudes is characteristically different from other kinds of knowledge: it has greater immediacy, authority, and salience. The contributors examine philosophical questions raised by the distinctive character of self-knowledge, relating it to knowledge of other minds, to rationality and agency, externalist (...) theories of psychological content, and knowledge of language. Together these original, stimulating, and closely interlinked essays demonstrate the special relevance of self-knowledge to a broad range of issues in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Politics and the Earthly City in Augustine's City of God by Veronica Roberts OgleAaron C. EbertPolitics and the Earthly City in Augustine's City of God by Veronica Roberts Ogle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), x + 201 pp.Politics is not a word in Augustine's lexicon—at least, it's not something he speaks of, in the abstract, in his great work of political theology, the City of God. This curious (...) omission from Augustine's late magnum opus et arduum has given rise to many a divergent reading of his political thought. Lacking an express account of the very term in question, his politics can seem to admit of a wide range of interpretations. On one side of the spectrum, it has been described as anticipating the religious neutrality of modern liberalism. On the other side, it has been interpreted as consolidating politics into religion by transposing political philosophy into the key of ecclesiology and making the Church the new realm of politics.1 In her elegantly written and insightful new book, which builds on the work of her 2014 dissertation at the University of Notre Dame and on a few published articles, Veronica Roberts Ogle charts a new interpretive path for reading Augustine on politics. She does this by means of two principal interventions.The first is by elucidating City of God's rhetorical purpose, what Ogle calls its "psychagogic character" (6). Psychagogy, "the art of leading [agô] souls [psychai] to a state of health," was the rhetorical aim and genre of much ancient philosophy (3). It took its cue from the philosopher's perception that his readers were sick with the disease of unhealthy attachment to the things of the world. Philosophers were physicians of the soul: they applied "the medicinal art of contraries" to their sick patients. This meant that their literary curatives often met patients/readers with the bitter taste of a poison (4). But—and this is the crucial point for Ogle—the poison was given for the purpose of health. What this means for Augustine's City of God, Ogle argues, is that we ought not take the work's biting and at-times-venomous rhetoric as evidence that Augustine is trying to poison his reader's vision of politics. Rather, he is trying to cure them of their attachment to the myths and delusions of politics-according-to-Rome and, instead, "to help us see the world, even the political world, anew: as part of a created order that is good, but that points beyond itself all the same" (4). Augustine's descriptions of Rome—indeed his frequent equations of Rome with the civitas [End Page 1426] terrena—are indeed meant to shock. But, so Ogle argues, they are meant to shock us out of destructive attachments so that we can learn to make the right attachments, first to Christ, and then, through Christ, to our earthly communities as pilgrims. City of God's pessimistic rhetoric is not Augustine simply denouncing the natural project of politics. It is a bitter medicine for a people deathly ill with an addiction to earthly glory.The second intervention of Ogle's book lies in its attention to what she calls City of God's "sacramental ethos" (5). This, I would argue, is the book's most important contribution. It is also the insight on which the heart of the book's argument depends. Sacraments, for Augustine, are signs that point us to God. Understood in this broad sense, the whole created order—that is, everything that is not God—has the quality of a sacrament by virtue of its very existence. This is connected closely to Augustine's understanding of evil as privatio boni: all that exists, to the extent that it exists, is good; and all that exists is, by nature, a sign (signum) pointing beyond itself to the Lord.These are not new insights into Augustine's doctrine of creation, but Ogle's application of them to the question of politics and the earthly city is suggestive. For what emerges is a new account of the relationship between politics and the earthly city. The whole created order... (shrink)

I. Eth. Nic. III. c. I, § 16. In spite of what Bernays and others have done to clear up this chapter, many perplexities remain. To some of these I propose later to return, but here I confine myself to one. Among the possible circumstances of an act, ignorance of which is excusable and may excuse, is enumerated τò ο νεκα. Nothing but desperation could have led the commentators to suggest that here τò ο νεκα means the actual effect or (...) result of the act . It may be sufficient to quote the notes ad loc. of these two scholars: 1. Stewart: ‘The o νεκα here is not, as usual, the intention of the doer, for he cannot be ignorant of what he intends to do; but the outcome or result of what he actually does, which is the opposite of the intention.’. (shrink)

This article engages in debates about the potential for aesthetics to be a positive, ethical, and moral frame for relating to the environment. Human‐environment relations are increasingly tied up with aesthetics. We problematize this trend by contending that aesthetics is an insufficient paradigm to motivate and shape environmentalism because it exceptionalizes some landscapes while devaluing others. This article uses four illustrative case studies to complicate aesthetic environmentalist frames. These case studies indicate that even when positive aesthetic qualities are deployed in (...) environmentalist advocacy, their usefulness is mitigated by a range of factors including: sensationalization, obfuscation, and further degradation. (shrink)

Brickhouse and Smith cast new light on Plato's early dialogues by providing novel analyses of many of the doctrines and practices for which Socrates is best known. Included are discussions of Socrates' moral method, his profession of ignorance, his denial of akrasia, as well as his views about the relationship between virtue and happiness, the authority of the State, and the epistemic status of his daimonion.

Many kinds of creativity result from combination of mental representations. This paper provides a computational account of how creative thinking can arise from combining neural patterns into ones that are potentially novel and useful. We defend the hypothesis that such combinations arise from mechanisms that bind together neural activity by a process of convolution, a mathematical operation that interweaves structures. We describe computer simulations that show the feasibility of using convolution to produce emergent patterns of neural activity that can support (...) cognitive and emotional processes underlying human creativity. (shrink)

Duggins et al. use a spiking neural network model of working memory to predict the reaction to two drugs known to affect working memory (guanfacine and phenylephrine). The model can explain data from moneys at the biophysical, neural, and behavioral levels.

We use a spiking neural network model of working memory capable of performing the spatial delayed response task to investigate two drugs that affect WM: guanfacine and phenylephrine. In this model, the loss of information over time results from changes in the spiking neural activity through recurrent connections. We reproduce the standard forgetting curve and then show that this curve changes in the presence of GFC and PHE, whose application is simulated by manipulating functional, neural, and biophysical properties of the (...) model. In particular, applying GFC causes increased activity in neurons that are sensitive to the information currently being remembered, while applying PHE leads to decreased activity in these same neurons. Interestingly, these differential effects emerge from network-level interactions because GFC and PHE affect all neurons equally. We compare our model to both electrophysiological data from neurons in monkey dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and to behavioral evidence from monkeys performing the DRT. (shrink)

Socrates' moral psychology is widely thought to be 'intellectualist' in the sense that, for Socrates, every ethical failure to do what is best is exclusively the result of some cognitive failure to apprehend what is best. Until publication of this book, the view that, for Socrates, emotions and desires have no role to play in causing such failure went unchallenged. This book argues against the orthodox view of Socratic intellectualism and offers in its place a comprehensive alternative account that explains (...) why Socrates believed that emotions, desires and appetites can influence human motivation and lead to error. Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith defend the study of Socrates' philosophy and offer an alternative interpretation of Socratic moral psychology. Their novel account of Socrates' conception of virtue and how it is acquired shows that Socratic moral psychology is considerably more sophisticated than scholars have supposed. (shrink)

Thomas Brickhouse and Nicholas Smith offer a comprehensive historical and philosophical interpretation of, and commentary on, one of Plato's most widely read works, the Apology of Socrates. Virtually every modern interpretation characterizes some part of what Socrates says in the Apology as purposefully irrelevant or even antithetical to convincing the jury to acquit him at his trial. This book, by contrast, argues persuasively that Socrates offers a sincere and well-reasoned defense against the charges he faces. First, the authors establish (...) a consensus of ancient reports about Socrates ' moral and religious principles and show that these prohibit him from needlessly risking the condemnation of the jury. Second, they consider each specific claim made by Socrates in the Apology and show how each can be construed as an honest effort to inform the jurors of the truth and to convince them of his blamelessness. The arguments of this book are informed by a critical review of the scholarly literature and careful attention to the philosophy expressed in Plato's other early dialogues. (shrink)

Socrates' moral psychology is widely thought to be 'intellectualist' in the sense that, for Socrates, every ethical failure to do what is best is exclusively the result of some cognitive failure to apprehend what is best. Until publication of this book, the view that, for Socrates, emotions and desires have no role to play in causing such failure went unchallenged. This book argues against the orthodox view of Socratic intellectualism and offers in its place a comprehensive alternative account that explains (...) why Socrates believed that emotions, desires and appetites can influence human motivation and lead to error. Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith defend the study of Socrates' philosophy and offer an alternative interpretation of Socratic moral psychology. Their novel account of Socrates' conception of virtue and how it is acquired shows that Socratic moral psychology is considerably more sophisticated than scholars have supposed. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to describe briefly the institutional arrangements which condition the activities of accountants in the United States; to heighten an awareness of the values which are embodied in the existing structures of accountability; to appraise the consistency with which the established ideals of society have been actualised in financial reporting, and to discern the shape of the emerging history of financial reporting in the light of new values and possibilities. I suggest that the tradition of (...) fair presentation in financial reporting is in danger of being eliminated by a purely political response to previous abuses. Mandatory accounting standards do have a role in preventing these abuses, but they can also be seen as instruments of distributive justice. To promote an awareness and discussion of the issues, I point out some of the goals and values underlying a few of the major structures designed for the distribution of economic costs and benefits. (shrink)

The definitive biography of Alain Locke, the first African American Rhodes Scholar and Harvard PhD in philosophy, Howard University philosophy scholar, and architect of the Harlem Renaissance, who mentored a generation of artists including Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Nurston and promoted the work of African Americans as the quintessential creators of American modernism. This biography explores his professional and private life, including his relationships with white patrons and his lifelong search for love as a gay man.

A scholarly edition of a work by Adam Smith. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

Cognitive modeling involves the creation of computer simulations that emulate the internal processes of the mind. This set of papers are the five best representatives of the papers presented at the 17th International Conference on Cognitive Modeling, ICCM 2019. While they represent a diversity of techniques and tasks, they all also share a striking similarity: They make strong statements about the importance of accounting for individual differences.

The 18th International Conference on Cognitive Modelling (ICCM 2020) brought together researchers whose goal is to develop computational simulations of the mind, and to use those simulations to test theories about how the mind works. In this special issue, we present four top papers from ICCM 2020. Two of these address the challenge of scaling up to more complex tasks, and the other two address the challenge of scaling down to connect these computational models to neuroscience.

The International Conference on Cognitive Modeling brings together researchers from around the world whose main goal is to build computational systems that reflect the internal processes of the mind. In this issue, we present the five best representative papers on this work from our 19th meeting, ICCM 2021, which was held virtually from July 3 to July 9, 2021. Three of these papers provide new techniques for refining computational models, giving better methods for taking empirical data and producing accurate computational (...) models of the cognitive systems that produce them. The other two papers focus on explanation: using models to elucidate the underlying processes affecting cognition in such diverse domains as logical reasoning and the effects of caffeine. (shrink)

The International Conference on Cognitive Modeling brings together researchers from around the world whose main goal is to build computational systems that reflect the internal processes of the mind. In this issue, we present the five best representative papers on this work from our 19th meeting, ICCM 2021, which was held virtually from July 3 to July 9, 2021. Three of these papers provide new techniques for refining computational models, giving better methods for taking empirical data and producing accurate computational (...) models of the cognitive systems that produce them. The other two papers focus on explanation: using models to elucidate the underlying processes affecting cognition in such diverse domains as logical reasoning and the effects of caffeine. (shrink)

Suffering, alongside the feeling of sanctity of life, pervades human experience, generating primal anxiety, which humans learn to shore up with social solidarity and with the practice of communication in religious rituals. The roots of social belonging spring from the primordial sentiments toward ethnicity, race, language, religion, customs and traditions, and region. Self–identity, mediated by mental formations derived from social relations, is composed of thinking and values. Daily experience reveals that cultural differences produce blind spots in thinking and barriers in (...) values—‐governing areas of activity, social relations, the world, and identity of being—‐that impedes cross—‐cultural understanding. (shrink)

Quantum probability (QP) theory can be seen as a type of vector symbolic architecture (VSA): mental states are vectors storing structured information and manipulated using algebraic operations. Furthermore, the operations needed by QP match those in other VSAs. This allows existing biologically realistic neural models to be adapted to provide a mechanistic explanation of the cognitive phenomena described in the target article by Pothos & Busemeyer (P&B).

In Plato’s Protagoras, Socrates clearly indicates that he is a cognitivist about the emotions—in other words, he believes that emotions are in some way constituted by cognitive states. It is perhaps because of this that some scholars have claimed that Socrates believes that the only way to change how others feel about things is to engage them in rational discourse, since that is the only way, such scholars claim, to change another’s beliefs. But in this paper we show that Socrates (...) is also responsive to, and has various non-rational strategies for dealing with, the many ways in which emotions can cloud our judgment and lead us into poor decision-making. We provide an account of how Socrates can consistently be a cognitivist about emotion and also have more than purely rational strategies for dealing with emotions. (shrink)

In the Protagoras, Socrates argues that each of the virtue-terms refers to one thing (: 333b4). But in the Laches (190c8–d5, 199e6–7), Socrates claims that courage is a proper part of virtue as a whole, and at Euthyphro 11e7–12e2, Socrates says that piety is a proper part of justice. But A cannot be both identical to B and also a proper part of B – piety cannot be both identical to justice and also a proper part of justice. In this (...) paper we argue that coherent sense can be made of Socrates'' apparently conflicting claims. The key to understanding Socrates'' position, we will argue, is the central role of wisdom among the virtues. It is through the relationship of each virtue to wisdom that each may be said to be the same as all of the others, on the one hand, and also that some virtues may be regarded as proper parts of some other virtues, or as proper parts of virtue in general, on the other. (shrink)