Many scholars believe that traditional courses in ethics (especially business ethics) have not been successful in making students ethical. The best that educators can hope is that these courses will help build ethical awareness. It is thus apparent that the apparatus used to teach ethics does not inspire the intellectual leap needed between the abstract awareness of ethical issues to the functional changes in behavior and decision-making. This paper posits that the creative arts, including literature, poetry, music, pictorial art, and (...) film, may provide the tools to help bridge that gap. The creative arts can profoundly impact individuals and cause social change by gradually implanting values and changing beliefs. They can instill morals by using stories, sounds, and images and arouse the passion needed to change behaviors. (shrink)

When explaining the causes of human behavior, genes are often given a special status. They are thought to relate to an intrinsic human 'essence', and essentialist biases have been shown to skew the way in which causation is assessed. Causal reasoning in general is subject to other pre-existing biases, including beliefs about normativity and morality. In this synthesis we show how factors which influence causal reasoning can be mapped to a framework of genetic essentialism, which reveals both the shared and (...) unique factors underpinning biases in causal reasoning and genetic essentialism. This comparison identifies overlooked areas of research which could provide fruitful investigation, such as whether normative assessments of behaviors influence the way that genetic causes are ascribed or endorsed. We also outline the importance of distinguishing reasoning processes regarding genetic causal influences on one's self versus others, as different cognitive processes and biases are likely to be at play. (shrink)

Purpose Genetic research, via the mainstream media, presents the public with novel, profound findings almost on a daily basis. However, it is not clear how much laypeople understand these presentations and how they integrate such new findings into their knowledge base. Genetic knowledge (GK), existing causal beliefs, and genetic essentialist tendencies (GET) have been implicated in such processes; the current study assesses the relationships between these elements and how brief presentations of media releases of scientific findings about genetics are consumed (...) and affect the readers. -/- Methods An Australian national survey of GK, GET, and existing causal beliefs about health phenomena (heart disease and obesity) was conducted. Participants were also exposed to news headlines that offered genetic and non-genetic partial explanations of the same health phenomena and reported their evaluations of these headlines, as well as the effects of the headlines on their personal understanding of the health phenomena. -/- Results GK was negatively-associated with GET. Whereas GK did not directly predict the evaluation and effects of the genetic headlines, GET did. GK predicted the effects of the headlines indirectly via GET and via GET and existing causal beliefs. -/- Conclusion GET seem to predict unwarranted effects of exposure to news headlines about genetic science, whereas GK seems to indirectly mitigate the same unwarranted effects. (shrink)

Posterior parietal cortex has traditionally been considered to be a sensory association area in which higher-order processing and intermodal integration of incoming sensory information occurs. In this paper, evidence from clinical reports and from lesion and behavioral-electrophysiological experiments using monkeys is reviewed and discussed in relation to the overall functional organization of posterior parietal association cortex, and particularly with respect to a proposed posterior parietal mechanism concerned with the initiation and control of certain classes of eye and limb movements. Preliminary (...) data from studies of the effects of posterior parietal lesions on oculomotor control in monkeys are reported.The behavioral effects of lesions of posterior parietal cortex in monkeys have been found to be similar to those which follow analogous damage of the minor hemisphere in humans, while behavioral-electrophysiological experiments have disclosed classes of neurons in this area which have functional properties closely related to the behavioral acts that are disrupted by lesions of the area. On the basis of current data from these areas of study, it is proposed that the sensory association model of posterior parietal function is inadequate to account for the complexities of the present evidence. Instead, it now appears that many diverse neural mechanisms are locatedin partin parietal cortex, that some of these mechanisms are involved in sensory processing and perceptual functions, but that others participate in motor control, and that still others are involved in attentional, motivational, or emotional processes. It is further proposed that the elementary units of these various neural mechanisms are distributed within posterior parietal cortex according to the columnar hypothesis of Mountcastle. (shrink)

For every k ∈ ω, there is an infinite set $A_k \subseteq \omega$ and a d(k) ∈ ω such that for all $Q_0, Q_1 \subseteq A_k$ where |Q 0 | = |Q 1 or $d(k) , the structures $\langle \omega, +, Q_0\rangle$ and $\langle \omega, +, Q_1\rangle$ are indistinguishable by first-order sentences of quantifier depth k whose atomic formulas are of the form u = v, u + v = w, and Q(u), where u, v, and w are variables.

Introduction / Alessandra Tanesini and Michael P. Lynch -- Reassessing different conceptions of argumentation / Catarina Dutilh Novaes -- Martial metaphors and argumentative virtues and vices / Ian James Kidd -- Arrogance and deep disagreement / Andrew Aberdein -- Closed-mindedness and arrogance / Heather Battaly -- Intellectual trust and the marketplace of ideas / Allan Hazlett -- Is searching the Internet making us intellectually arrogant? / J. Adam Carter and Emma C. Gordon -- Intellectual humility and the curse (...) of knowledge / Michael Hannon -- Bullshit and dogmatism : a discourse analytical perspective / Chris Heffer -- Polarization and the problem of spreading arrogance / Michael P. Lynch -- Arrogance, polarization and arguing to win / Alessandra Tanesini -- Partisanship, humility, and epistemic polarization / Thomas Nadelhoffer, Rose Graves, Gus Skorburg, Mark Leary, and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong -- Science denial, polarization, and arrogance / Lee McIntyre -- The polarization toolkit / Quassim Cassam -- Epistemic rights in a polarized world : the right to know and the abortion / Debate Lani Watson. (shrink)

Like William James before him, Huw Price has influentially argued that truth has a normative role to play in our thought and talk. I agree. But Price also thinks that we should regard truth-conceived of as property of our beliefs-as something like a metaphysical myth. Here I disagree. In this paper, I argue that reflection on truth's values pushes us in a slightly different direction, one that opens the door to certain metaphysical possibilities that even a Pricean pragmatist can (...) love. (shrink)

The issue of same-gender sexual identity has challenged our understanding of psychological development and psychological intervention throughout the century just past and continues to provoke discussion in the century upon us. Over the past three decades, psychoanalysis advanced toward a contemporary perspective, which holds that the dynamics of sexual orientation must be an important element of the psychoanalytic process, but must be approached without prejudice regarding the outcome of analytic exploration of wish and desire. Taken together, the essays in _Rethinking (...) Psychoanalysis and the Homosexualities, a thematic volume of The Annual of Psychoanalysis_, provide a developmentally grounded and clinically consequential enlargement of this basic premise. The result is a timely overview of contemporary approaches to the study of sexual orientation within psychoanalysis that highlights issues salient to clinical work with lesbian and gay patients. The section on "The Meaning of Sexualization in Clinical Psychoanalysis" demonstrates the importance of psychoanalytic study of same-gender desire and sexual orientation for analyst and analysand alike. Philips considers the analyst's own sexual identity as a factor shaping the analysand's experience of sexuality, whereas Shelby, Lynch, Roughton, and Young-Bruehl, from their various perspectives, address the problem of stigma and prejudice as they distort same-gender desire and same-gender sexual identity. Two concluding sections of the book explore the implications of a clinical psychoanalytic perspective for the study of gay and lesbian lives. Timely and essential reading for all mental health professionals, _Rethinking Psychoanalysis and the Homosexualities_ underscores the profound distance traversed by psychoanalysis in arriving at its contemporary understandings of gender, sexual identity, and sexual desire. (shrink)

The issue of same-gender sexual identity has challenged our understanding of psychological development and psychological intervention throughout the century just past and continues to provoke discussion in the century upon us. Over the past three decades, psychoanalysis advanced toward a contemporary perspective, which holds that the dynamics of sexual orientation must be an important element of the psychoanalytic process, but must be approached without prejudice regarding the outcome of analytic exploration of wish and desire. Taken together, the essays in _Rethinking (...) Psychoanalysis and the Homosexualities, a thematic volume of The Annual of Psychoanalysis_, provide a developmentally grounded and clinically consequential enlargement of this basic premise. The result is a timely overview of contemporary approaches to the study of sexual orientation within psychoanalysis that highlights issues salient to clinical work with lesbian and gay patients. The section on "The Meaning of Sexualization in Clinical Psychoanalysis" demonstrates the importance of psychoanalytic study of same-gender desire and sexual orientation for analyst and analysand alike. Philips considers the analyst's own sexual identity as a factor shaping the analysand's experience of sexuality, whereas Shelby, Lynch, Roughton, and Young-Bruehl, from their various perspectives, address the problem of stigma and prejudice as they distort same-gender desire and same-gender sexual identity. Two concluding sections of the book explore the implications of a clinical psychoanalytic perspective for the study of gay and lesbian lives. Timely and essential reading for all mental health professionals, _Rethinking Psychoanalysis and the Homosexualities_ underscores the profound distance traversed by psychoanalysis in arriving at its contemporary understandings of gender, sexual identity, and sexual desire. (shrink)

William James once said that truth is “the good in the way of belief.” This has the ring of, well, truth. While it may appear as if James’ claim is straightforwardly true, I think that there are at least three different dimensions along which truth can be normatively related to belief. In this paper, I explore these different dimensions of truth’s value, considering both how they differ and how they relate. As we will see, our understanding of these (...) different dimensions of truth’s value can impact our understanding of its nature. I argue that a fuller understanding of the connections between truth’s normative dimensions pushes us in a decidedly pragmatist and pluralist direction—something of which I believe James would approve. (shrink)

Agency and Imagination in the Films of David Lynch: Philosophical Perspectives offers a sustained philosophical interpretation of the filmmaker’s work in light of classic and contemporary discussions of human agency and the complex relations between our capacity to act and our ability to imagine.

We are immersed within an odorous sea of chemical currents that we parse into individual odors with complex structures. Odors have been posited as determined by the structural relation between the molecules that compose the chemical compounds and their interactions with the receptor site. But, naturally occurring smells are parsed from gaseous odor plumes. To give a comprehensive account of the nature of odors the chemosciences must account for these large distributed entities as well. We offer a focused review of (...) what is known about the perception of odor plumes for olfactory navigation and tracking, which we then connect to what is known about the role odorants play as properties of the plume in determining odor identity with respect to odor quality. We end by motivating our central claim that more research needs to be conducted on the role that odorants play within the odor plume in determining odor identity. (shrink)

This scholarly and engaging text focuses on John Milton’s poetry and prose as the locus of a hermeneutic model of the interpretation of meaning which is radically different from modern scientific understandings of interpretation as a matter of discovery or the uncovering of knowledge.

In this paper we explain our pretense account of truth-talk and apply it in a diagnosis and treatment of the Liar Paradox. We begin by assuming that some form of deflationism is the correct approach to the topic of truth. We then briefly motivate the idea that all T-deflationists should endorse a fictionalist view of truth-talk, and, after distinguishing pretense-involving fictionalism (PIF) from error- theoretic fictionalism (ETF), explain the merits of the former over the latter. After presenting the basic framework (...) of our PIF account of truth-talk, we demonstrate a few advantages it offers over T-deflationist accounts that do not explicitly acknowledge pretense at work in the discourse. In turning to the Liar Paradox, we explain how the quasi-anaphoric functioning that our account attributes to truth-talk provides a diagnosis of the Liar Paradox (and other instances of semantic pathology) as having no content—in the sense of not specifying any of what we call M-conditions. At the same time, however, we vindicate the intuition that we can understand liar sentences, thereby avoiding one standard objection to “meaningless strategy” responses to the Liar Paradox. With this diagnosis in place, we then, by way of treatment, introduce a new predicate, ‘semantically defective’, and show how the explanation we give for its application allows for a consistent, yet revenge-immune, (dis)solution of the Liar Paradox, and semantic pathology generally. (shrink)

This paper examines the philosophy of Jean-Francois Lyotard in relation to the analytic philosophy of deep disagreement. It argues not just that his work has relevance for this debate, but that it offers a challenge to the ‘epistemic paradigm’ present in its academic literature, represented by the two most prominent sets of theories within it – the ‘fundamental epistemic principle’ and ‘hinge epistemology’ views, arguably most strongly represented by Michael Lynch and Duncan Pritchard, respectively. Focussing on Lyotard’s text ‘The (...) Differend’, I show how its conceptual framework and philosophy of language locates the cause of deep disagreement not in the epistemic realm, but in things which do not fully submit to epistemic evaluation: the radically incomplete and open nature of language, and our increasingly politically pluralistic world full of incommensurable differences that do not always admit of rational resolution. Lyotard’s work calls for us to conceptualize deep disagreements as problems of politics, not epistemology, and to find new ways of dealing with disagreements that do not force a solution on them (which often comes at the cost of one party being wronged, or worse) and to create new ways of speaking so that our collective conceptual resources can be increased to better deal with specific cases of dispute. Lyotard’s relevance for the philosophy of deep disagreement is also further discussed with references to Miranda Fricker’s work on ‘epistemic injustice’, which Lyotard, in a different vocabulary, is also concerned with and analyses in ‘The Differend’. (shrink)

This article interprets David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001) to argue for the morphological influence cinematic images have on modernity's monstrous identity. It shows how Lynch's tactic of interweaving apparently discrete spaces of dream and reality – one often inverting or uncannily ironising the other – relies on the virtual space of cinema, which leaves a mark on understanding, irrespective of its apparent truth. To do so, I employ Peter Sloterdijk's philosophy of space – especially the spherology developed in (...) his Spheres trilogy – and Bernard Stiegler's approach to cinematic phenomenology to consider the transferential force of cinema, and its power to cultivate and shape popular consciousness. Mulholland Drive is acutely aware of this force, and its interplay with the expectations and disappointments of Hollywood monstrosity inserts itself into the sphere-forming traffic of modern meaning-making. In doing so, I argue, the film takes up Lynch's familiar approach to irony and the weird to unwind the destructive uniformity of Hollywood hegemony. The productive bifurcations that result, inscribed in between cinema and consciousness, and forgettable as the very spheric intimacy of memory, gesture to what might live beyond discrete forms. (shrink)

Abstract:AbstractProfessor James opens her essay “Looking” with her aging mother's distressed response to the televised images of Ferguson on the evening District Attorney McCulloch announced that Darren Wilson would not be indicted for killing Michael Brown. A St. Louis native, she had left the city as a young woman to flee the twinned violence of sexism and racism and had never resided there again. James juxtaposes her mother's attempt to “not look back” at the circumstances she left behind (...) against the intentional, political and historical practice of “black feminist looking.” Drawing energy from bell hooks' early theories of the black “oppositional gaze,” James argues that turning to Ida B. Wells' unflinching portrayals of lynching in the classroom can demonstrate black feminist looking's transformative power. She suggests this looking represents a potentially empowering confrontation with black melancholic grief, and that black grief can only be pedagogical if unleashed, acknowledged and historicized. (shrink)

Based on the results of open ended interviews with managers in a variety of organizational positions, moral questions encountered in everyday managerial life are described. These involve transactions with employees, peers and superiors, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. It is suggested that managers identify transactions as involving personal moral concern when they believe that a moral standard has a bearing on the situation and when they experience themselves as having the power to affect the transaction. This is the first in (...) a research series of three papers. (shrink)

The lack of concrete guidance provided by managerial moral standards and the ambiguity of the expectations they create are discussed in terms of the moral stress experienced by many managers. It is argued that requisite clarity and feelings of obligation with respect to moral standards derive ultimately from public discussion of moral issues within organizations and from shared public agreement about appropriate behavior. Suggestions are made about ways in which the moral dimension of an organization's culture can be more effectively (...) managed. This is the third in a research series of three papers. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine the case of psychedelic medicine for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD). These “mind-altering” drugs are not currently offered as treatments to persons with AD/ADRD, though there is growing interest in their use to treat underlying causes and associated psychiatric symptoms. We present a research agenda for examining the ethics of psychedelic medicine and research involving persons living with AD/ADRD, and offer preliminary analyses of six ethical issues: the impact of psychedelics on autonomy and consent; (...) the impact of “ego dissolution” on persons experiencing a pathology of self; how psychedelics might impact caregiving; the potential exploitation of patient desperation; institutional review boards’ orientation to psychedelic research; and methods to mitigate inequity. These ethical issues are magnified for AD/ADRD but bear broader relevance to psychedelic medicine and research in other clinical populations. (shrink)

A detailed account of certain traits of intellectual character—the epistemic virtues—and of their relation to the responsibility for one's beliefs.

Quantum mechanics tells us that states involving indistinguishable fermions must be antisymmetrized. This is often taken to mean that indistinguishable fermions are always entangled. We consider several notions of entanglement and argue that on the best of them, indistinguishable fermions are not always entangled. We also present a simple but unconventional way of representing fermionic states that allows us to maintain a link between entanglement and non-factorizability.

This paper addresses theoretical problems arising from the vagueness of language terms, and intuitions of the vagueness of the concepts to which they refer. It is argued that the central intuitions of prototype theory are sufficient to account for both typicality phenomena and psychological intuitions about degrees of membership in vaguely defined classes. The first section explains the importance of the relation between degrees of membership and typicality (or goodness of example) in conceptual categorization. The second and third section address (...) arguments advanced by Osherson and Smith (1997), and Kamp and Partee (1995), that the two notions of degree of membership and typicality must relate to fundamentally different aspects of conceptual representations. A version of prototype theory—the Threshold Model—is proposed to counter these arguments and three possible solutions to the problems of logical selfcontradiction and tautology for vague categorizations are outlined. In the final section graded membership is related to the social construction of conceptual boundaries maintained through language use. (shrink)

In this book the author explores the shifting philosophical boundaries of modern medical knowledge and practice occasioned by the crisis of quality-of-care, especially in terms of the various humanistic adjustments to the biomedical model.

For years, _Multicultural Education_ has served as an essential resource for education professionals, featuring scholarly articles written by industry leaders and topics, following current trends in education instruction today. The text helps educators understand the concepts, paradigms, and explanations necessary for becoming effective practitioners in the ever-evolving classroom environment, highlighting cultural, raocial and language-focused topics. Each chapter now incorporates new theoretical, conceptual, and research developments within the field, providing an adaptable approach to classroom techniques. With growing classroom diversity, the text (...) also features a chapter that focuses on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. Statistical tables, figures and charts have been updated to present the most current information. (shrink)

The Self We Live By confronts the serious challenges facing the self in postmodern times. Taking issue with contemporary trivializations of the self, the book traces a course of development from the early pragmatists who formulated what they called the 'empirical self', to contemporary constructionist views of the storied self. Presenting an institutional context for the increasing complexity and ubiquity of narrative identity, the authors illustrate the 'everyday technology of self construction' and idscuss the resulting moral climate. The book is (...) suitable for advanced undergraduates and graduate students in courses such as Individual in Society, Contemporary American Society, Social Psychology, Social Interaction and Culture & Personality. (shrink)

Feeling bad is one thing, judging something to be bad another. This hot/cold distinction helps resolve the debate between bipolar and bivariate accounts of affect. A typical affective reaction includes both core affect and judgments of the affective qualities of various aspects of the stimulus situation. Core affect is described by a bipolar valence dimension in which feeling good precludes simultaneously feeling bad and vice versa. Judgments of affective quality of opposite valence can occur simultaneously because the stimulus situation has (...) many aspects. Affective reaction can also include an emotional meta-experience, which can, but rarely does, embrace simultaneous emotion categories of opposite valence. (shrink)

Nietzsche criticizes Stoicism for overstating the significance of its ethical ideal of rational self-sufficiency and for undervaluing pain and passion when pursuing an unconditional acceptance of fate. Apparent affinities between Stoicism and Nietzsche’s philosophy, especially his celebration of self-mastery and his pursuit of amor fati, lead some scholars to conclude that Nietzsche cannot advance these criticisms without contradicting himself. In this article, I narrow the target and scope of Nietzsche’s complaints against Stoicism before showing how they follow from his other (...) philosophic commitments. I suggest that the first line of criticism follows from his denial of teleology and his skepticism toward moral values’ descriptive objectivity. I then suggest that the second line of criticism follows from Nietzsche’s account of overcoming as bestowing contributory value upon pain and suffering. Explaining Nietzsche’s criticisms of Stoicism in this way substantially qualifies similarities between his philosophy and that of Stoicism while absolving him of the charge of inconsistency. (shrink)

Competing perspectives on the nature of emotion are illustrated with latent and emergent variable models. Latent variable models draw from classical test theory, assuming that the measured indicators of emotion covary by virtue of some common executive, organizing neural circuit or network in the brain. By contrast, emergent variable models draw from a theory-driven, operational definition tradition, positing that emotions do not cause, but rather are caused by, the measured indicators of emotion, assuming no executive neural circuit or network, and (...) requiring no covariation among indicators. I suggest that the emergent variable model may be more compatible with the extant literature on the nature of emotion, especially in the age of affective neuroscience. (shrink)

What big questions and large‐scale narratives give coherence to the history of science? From the late 1970s onward, the field has been transformed through a stress on practice and fresh perspectives from gender studies, the sociology of knowledge, and work on a greatly expanded range of practitioners and cultures. Yet these developments, although long overdue and clearly beneficial, have been accompanied by fragmentation and loss of direction. This essay suggests that the narrative frameworks used by historians of science need to (...) come to terms with diversity by understanding science as a form of communication. The centrality of processes of movement, translation, and transmission is already emerging in studies of topics ranging from ethnographic encounters to the history of reading. Not only does this approach offer opportunities for crossing boundaries of nation, period, and discipline that are all too easily taken for granted; it also has the potential for creating a more effective dialogue with other historians and the wider public. (shrink)

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive overview of the entire career of one of Britain's greatest men of letters. It sets in biographical and historical context all of Hume's works, from A Treatise of Human Nature to The History of England, bringing to light the major influences on the course of Hume's intellectual development, and paying careful attention to the differences between the wide variety of literary genres with which Hume experimented. The major events in Hume's life (...) are fully described, but the main focus is on Hume's intentions as a philosophical analyst of human nature, politics, commerce, English history, and religion. Careful attention is paid to Hume's intellectual relations with his contemporaries. The goal is to reveal Hume as a man intensely concerned with the realization of an ideal of open-minded, objective, rigorous, dispassionate dialogue about all the principal questions faced by his age. (shrink)