To controlforceaccurately under a wide range of behavioral conditions, the central nervous system would either require a detailed, continuously updated representation of the state of each muscle (and the load against which each is acting) or else force feedback with sufficient gain to cope with variations in the properties of the muscles and loads. The evidence for force feedback with adequate gain or for an appropriate central representation is not sufficient to conclude that force is the major controlled variable in (...) normal limb movements.Morton's hypothesis, thatlengthis controlled by a follow-up servo, has a number of difficulties related to the delays, gains, variability, and specificity in feedback pathways comprising potential servo loops. However, experimental evidence is consistent with these pathways providing servo assistance for some movements produced by coactivation of α- and static γ-motoneurons. Dynamic γ-motoneurons may provide an additional input for adaptive control of different types of movements.The idea that feedback is used to compensate for changes in musclestiffnesshas received experimental support under static postural conditions. However, reflexes tend to increase rather than decrease the range of variation in muscle stiffness during some cyclic movements. Theoretical problems associated with the regulation of stiffness are also discussed. The possibilities of separate control systems forvelocityorviscosityare considered, but the evidence is either negative or lacking. I conclude that different physical variables can be controlled depending on the type of limb movement required. The concept of stiffness regulation is also useful under some conditions, but should probably be extended to the regulation of the visco-elastic properties (i.e., the mechanical impedance) of a muscle or joint. (shrink)

All of our information about the world is derived from the function of our senses, and thus they are the principal source of all our knowledge. This was recognized explicitly by early Greek philosophers, remained an important point of discussion for nineteenth‐century philosophers, and continues to be a key issue for present‐day philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists. It is a key issue in cognitive science because, by initiating the processes that store and evaluate information, sensory information transmission can be considered a (...) cognitive initiator. In a very real sense, who we are and how we see the world are the result of the experiences that are mediated by our sensory systems. These are some of the reasons why the study of sensory systems has occupied such a prominent place in modern cognitive neuroscience. (shrink)

Background: There are few standardized measures available to assess executive function in a naturalistic setting for children. The Children’s Cooking Task is a complex test that has been specifically developed to assess EF in a standardized open-ended environment. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the internal consistency, inter-rater reliability, sensitivity and specificity, and also convergent and divergent validity of the Norwegian version of CCT among children with pediatric Acquired Brain Injury and healthy controls.Methods: The present study has (...) a cross-sectional design, based on baseline data derived from a multicenter RCT. Seventy-five children with pABI from two university hospitals with parent-reported executive dysfunction and minimum of 12 months since injury/completed cancer therapy, as well as 59 HCs aged 10–17 years, were assessed with CCT using total errors as the main outcome measure. The pABI group completed tests assessing EF on the impairment level within the ICF framework, and on the participation level. In addition, they completed tests of intellectual ability, processing speed, attention, learning, and memory. Finally, overall functional outcome was evaluated for the children with pABI.Results: Acceptable internal consistency and good inter-rater reliability were found for the CCT. Children with pABI performed significantly worse on the CCT than the HCs. The CCT identified group membership, but the sensitivity and specificity were overall classified as poor. Convergent validity was demonstrated by associations between the CCT and performance-based tests assessing inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and working memory, as well as teacher-reported executive dysfunction. Divergent validity was supported by the lack of association with performance-based measures of learning and memory, attention, and verbal intellectual ability. However, there was a moderate association between the CCT and performance-based tests of processing speed. Lastly, better performance on the CCT was associated with a better functional outcome.Conclusion: Our study with a relatively large sample of children with pABI and HC’s demonstrated good psychometric properties of the CCT. CCT performance was associated with the overall level of disability and function, suggesting that CCT is related to the level of activity in everyday life and participation in society. Hence, our study suggests that the CCT has the potential to advance the assessment of EF by providing a valid analysis of real-world performance. Nevertheless, further research is needed on larger samples, focusing on predictors of task performance, and evaluating the ability of CCT to detect improvement in EF over time. The patterns of error and problem-solving strategies evaluated by the CCT could be used to inform neuropsychological rehabilitation treatmentand represent a more valid outcome measure of rehabilitation interventions. (shrink)

Religious and Ethical Perspectives on Global Migration examines the complicated social ethics of migration in today's world. Editors Elizabeth W. Collier and Charles R. Strain bring the perspectives of an international group of scholars toward a theory of justice and ethical understanding for the nearly two hundred million migrants who have left their homes seeking asylum from political persecution, greater freedom and safety, economic opportunity, or reunion with family members.

This book is not a study of Plato's philosophy, but a contribution to the literary interpretation of the dialogues, through analysis of their formal structure, ...

Despite All Critique (2014) -- World Politics and Western Reason (1980) -- The Doubled Outsides of the Modern International (2005) -- The Subject of Security (1995) -- The Protection of Nature and the Nature of Protection (2005) -- Social Movements/World Politics (1994) -- Europe is Not Where It is Supposed to Be (2000) -- They Seek it Here, They Seek it There : Looking for Politics in Clayoquot Sound (2003) -- Violence, Modernity, Silence : From Weber to International Relations (1993) (...) -- Hobbes, Origins, Limits (2011) -- War, Terror, Judgement (2002) -- International, Imperial, Exceptional (2005) -- Which Democracy for Which Demos? (2013) -- The Political Theory of Boundaries and the Boundaries of Political Theory : Interview With Raia Prokhovnik (2012). (shrink)

In this paper a formalized logic of propositions, PA1, is presented. It is proven consistent and its relationships to traditional logic, to PM ([15]), to subjunctive (including contrary-to-fact) implication and to the “paradoxes” of material and strict implication are developed. Apart from any intrinsic merit it possesses, its chief significance lies in demonstrating the feasibility of a general logic containing theprinciple of subjunctive contrariety, i.e., the principle that ‘Ifpwere true thenqwould be true’ and ‘Ifpwere true thenqwould be false’ are incompatible.

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It is a common complaint against moral philosophers that their abstract theorising bears little relation to the practical problems of everyday life. Professor Braithwaite believes that this criticism need not be inevitable. With the help of the Theory of Games he shows how arbitration is possible between two neighbours, a jazz trumpeter and a classical pianist, whose performances are a source of mutual discord. The solution of the problem in the lecture is geometrical, and is based on the formal analogy (...) between the logic of the situation and the geometry of a parabola. But an appendix provides the alternative algebraic treatment of a general two-person collaboration situation. (shrink)

Qualia have historically been thought to stand in a very different epistemological relation to the knower than does the external furniture of the world. The ‘raw feels’ of thought were often said to be ‘given’, while what we might call the content of that thought – for example, claims about the external world – was thought only more or less doubtfully true; and this was often said to be because we are ‘directly’ or ‘non-inferentially’ confronted by qualia or experiences, whereas (...) all other properties or objects are only mediately ‘connected’ to the perceiver. The modern turn in philosophy – spearheaded by Wittgen-stein, Sellars, Quine, Ryle and others – away from classical empiricism to today’s ‘post-postivistic’ philosophy, has apparently involved the rejection of this once familiar assumption. I argue a) that the rejection of a certain kind of epistemological foundationalism does not entail the rejection of phenomenal individuals tout court; and b) that qualia are in fact, in some epistemologically significant ways, given. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of original essays by eminent philosophers written for R. B. Braithwaite's eightieth birthday to celebrate his work and teaching. In one way or another, all the essays reflect his central concern with the impact of science on our beliefs about the world and the responses appropriate to that. Together they testify to the signal importance of his contributions in areas of philosophy bearing on this concern: the philosophy of science, especially of the statistical sciences, theories (...) of belief and of probability, decision theory and games theory. This book, which includes a full bibliography of Professor Braithwaite's work, will interest advanced students and professionals in the fields of philosophy and psychology. (shrink)

However, Stein's self-images are more than appropriations of a male identity and masculine interests. Several of them are irrelevant to categories of sex and gender. In part, Stein is an obsessive psychologist, a Euclid of behavior, searching for "bottom natures," the substratum of individuality. She also tries to diagram psychic genotypes, patterns into which all individuals might fit. Although she plays with femaleness/maleness as categories, she also investigates an opposition of impetuousness and passivity, fire and phlegm; a variety (...) of regional and national types; and the dualism of the "dependent independent," who tends to resist. In part, as she puzzles her way towards knowing and understanding, she presents herself as engaged in aural and oral acts, listening and hearing before speaking and telling. That sense of perception as physical also emerges in a passage in which she, as perceiver/describer, first incorporates and then linguistically discharges the world: "Mostly always when I am filled up with it I tell it, sometimes I have to tell it, sometimes I like to tell it, sometimes I keep on with telling it."1 · 1. The Making of Americans: Being a History of a Family's Progress , p. 325. Catharine R. Stimpson, associate professor of English at Barnard College, is the editor of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society and the author of J.R.R. Tolkien as well as other essays and fiction. See also: "Visual Rhetoric in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" by Paul K. Alkon in Vol. 1, No. 4; "Gertrude Stein, the Cone Sisters, and the Puzzle of Female Friendship" by Carolyn Burke in Vol. 8, No. 3. (shrink)

One area in which the moral philosopher might say something useful for the thinking of economists is that of welfare economics – not by improving formalizations or criticizing proofs as to conditions necessary or sufficient for an optimum situation, much less by suggesting what particular state of society would be optimal. Rather, he can do this by pointing out some distinctions, by suggesting how some terms used by economists can profitably be defined, and by questioning some assumptions which seem to (...) lie behind the thinking of some economists. The following discussion is aimed along these lines. The main goal of the argument will be to produce helpful definitions of “increase the welfare of an individual” and “increase social welfare.”. (shrink)

Virtually all philosophers now agree that human beings - and possibly the higher animals - have moral rights in some sense, both special rights against individuals to whom they stand in a special relation, and general rights, against everybody or against the government, just in virtue of their human nature. Some philosophers also think, however, that anyone who is a utilitarian ought not to share this view: there is a fundamental incompatibility between utilitarinism and human rights. Most utilitarians, of course, (...) have not thought there is such an incompatibility. John Stuart Mill, for instance, espoused utilitarianism at the same time that he defended rights to free speech and freedom of action except where it injures others. In what follows I wish to explore some reasons recently put forward to show that the utilitarian who wishes to affirm that there are moral rights faces a serious logical problem; and I shall argue that further analysis shows the alleged difficulty is unreal. (shrink)

Many social scientists and philosophers have counted themselves moral relativists in some sense or other. We cannot deal with all the various views which are properly called forms of “moral relativism”; so I propose to explain a form of moral relativism which seems to me an interesting, and somewhat plausible theory. This theory comprises the following three affirmations: The basic moral principles of different individuals or groups sometimes are, or can be, in some important sense conflicting. When there is such (...) fundamental conflict of basic principles or standards, there is either always, or at least sometimes, no way to show that one view is better justified even in the presence of ideally complete factual information; in that sense the principles are equally justified or “valid.” But there is a sense in which a particular moral belief may be mistaken or unjustified, if it is a misapplication of the basic principles of the individual or group, e.g., if the basic principles plus statements of known or knowable facts entail a moral proposition incompatible with it. As stated, moral relativism could be true even though in fact, accidentally, all individuals agree in their basic moral principles. (shrink)

Anyone, today, with even a slight interest in the methodology of science will be aware of the heated debate which has raged in regard to the thesis of the logical symmetry between explanation and prediction, which is entailed by the hypotheticodeductive account of scientific theory. The symmetry thesis, which received its classical exposition in a well-known article by Hempel and Oppenheim [2], has been subject to a steadily growing criticism by several eminent thinkers. My intention, in this article, is to (...) argue that the current reaction to the Hempel-Oppenheim position, as exemplified by Professors Hanson, Scriven, et al., represents a retrograde movement in the philosophy of science, which, as the number of its converts grows, could undermine the progress, which has been accomplished in the broad tradition that extends from Mach and Poincaré through the Vienna Circle to the present day. Specifically, it is my contention that the aforementioned reaction is symptomatic of a contemporary trend in the direction of irrationalism which, of all branches of philosophy, the philosophy of science should seek to dispel rather than to foster. For the sake of brevity, I propose to focus my remarks wholly on the original widely read article of Hanson on this subject [1]. That I single out this particular source should not be taken to belie the admiration I hold for the masterful scholarship of its author. (shrink)