Hursthouse :57–68, 1991) argues that arational actions—e.g. kicking a door out of anger—cannot be explained by belief–desire pairs. The Humean Response to Hursthouse :25–38, 2000b) defends the Humean model from Hursthouse’s challenge. We argue that the Humean Response fails because belief–desire pairs are neither necessary nor sufficient for causing emotional actions. The Emotionist Response is to embrace Hursthouse’s conclusion that emotions provide an independent source of explanation for intentional actions. We consider Döring’s :214–230, 2003) feeling-based Emotionist account and argue that (...) it fails to explain arational actions. Finally, we develop our own Emotionist account, grounded in the Motivational Theory of Emotions one of us has developed. On our account, arational actions form a non-homogeneous class, some members of which must be understood as instrumental actions and some members of which must be understood as displacement behaviors of the kind animals display when their motivations are thwarted or in conflict. (shrink)

Although young children might be uncertain about the nature of certain representations, most modern adults would explicitly maintain that photographs have no ongoing physical connection the objects that they depict. We demonstrate here in three studies that destruction of a photograph of a sentimental object produces significantly more electrodermal activity than destruction of photographs of other control objects. This response is not attributable to anxiety about being observed whilst destroying the picture, nor is it entirely due to simple visual association (...) ‐ the same response occurs when the photograph does not resemble the object. We suggest that this effect may reflect a tacit acceptance of “sympathetic magic”. (shrink)

A critical examination of Alvin Plantinga's attempted defense against the dreaded "Great Pumpkin Objection" to his theistic-belief-as-properly-basic religious epistemology.

This article is a review of R.L Park's Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud.

What do the words "ceteris paribus" add to a causal hypothesis, that is, to a generalization that is intended to articulate the consequences of a causal mechanism? One answer, which looks almost too good to be true, is that a ceteris paribus hedge restricts the scope of the hypothesis to those cases where nothing undermines, interferes with, or undoes the effect of the mechanism in question, even if the hypothesis's own formulator is otherwise unable to specify fully what might constitute (...) such undermining or interference. I will propose a semantics for causal generalizations according to which ceteris paribus hedges deliver on this promise, because the truth conditions for a causal generalization depend in part on the—perhaps unknown—nature of the mechanism whose consequences it is intended to describe. It follows that the truth conditions for causal hypotheses are typically opaque to the very scientists who formulate and test them. (shrink)

Historically, "Healing Methods" (HMS) have not been based on rational theories. Of the thousands of HMs that have arisen over the ages, only a small number survive today, drawing their power and longevity mostly from their superior ability to act as a placebo within the context of modern-day culture, rather than through any other mode of action.When it comes to HMs, Western scientific culture has not yet evolved beyond a pre-scientific stage (Fancher 1995). A scientific analysis of the part played (...) by practitioner/subject empathy and other emotional influences within the healing situation is needed. Furthermore, the question "Does 'it'work?" should be reformulated as "Is 'it' an effective placebo?"Once one accepts .. (shrink)

The world is increasingly full of junk science. Pseudo-scientific claims are rife, and the public is regularly misled. Here, the physicist Robert Park points out seven warning signs of pseudo-science. Does parapsychology exhibit any of these warning signs? Read on to find out….

We hear much of voodoo science or junk science or even scientific science, in this paper I seek to evaluate and understand how we might approach a description of the qualities of science. In this I base my reasoning on the equivalence of the words science and knowledge. I then note that the application of the scientific method determines how confident we may be in what we hold as knowledge or science (basically a tested guess or hypothesis). The different (...) levels of confidence are reflected in a variety of terms, including: good or bad, junk or valuable, voodoo or reliable. (shrink)

These studies examined whether having thoughts related to an event before it occurs leads people to infer that they caused the event— even when such causation might otherwise seem magical. In Study 1, people perceived that they had harmed another person via a voodoo hex. These perceptions were more likely among those who had first been induced to harbor evil thoughts about their victim. In Study 2, spectators of a peer’s basketball-shooting performance were more likely to perceive that they (...) had influenced his success if they had first generated positive visualizations consistent with that success. Observers privy to those spectators’ visualizations made similar attributions about the spectators’ influence. Finally, addi- tional studies suggested that these results occur even when the thought-about outcome is viewed as unwanted by the thinker and even in field settings where the relevant outcome is occurring as part of a live athletic competition. (shrink)

Issues include attempts generally; the problem of outcome luck; the impossibility defense; physical movement and intent; and reckless attempts, attempted rape, and attempted theft. In the final section, I offer a hypothetical that challenges Prof. Donnelly-Lazarov's theory.

Everyone has heard the claim, "Correlation does not imply causation." What might sound like a reasonable dictum metastasized in the twentieth century into one of science's biggest obstacles, as a legion of researchers became unwilling to make the claim that one thing could cause another. Even two decades ago, asking a statistician a question like "Was it the aspirin that stopped my headache?" would have been like asking if he believed in voodoo, or at best a topic for conversation (...) at a cocktail party rather than a legitimate target of scientific inquiry. Scientists were allowed to posit only that the probability that one thing was associated with another. This all changed with Judea Pearl, whose work on causality was not just a victory for common sense, but a revolution in the study of the world. (shrink)

Co-authored by three prominent philosophers of art, Jazz and the Philosophy of Art is the first book in English to be exclusively devoted to philosophical issues in jazz. It covers such diverse topics as minstrelsy, bebop, Voodoo, social and tap dancing, parades, phonography, musical forgeries, and jazz singing, as well as Goodman's allographic/autographic distinction, Adorno's critique of popular music, and what improvisation is and is not. The book is organized into three parts. Drawing on innovative strategies adopted to address (...) challenges that arise for the project of defining art, Part I shows how historical definitions of art provide a blueprint for a historical definition of jazz. Part II extends the book's commitment to social-historical contextualism by exploring distinctive ways that jazz has shaped, and been shaped by, American culture. Chapters 4 and 5 use the lens of jazz vocals to provide perspective on racial issues previously unaddressed in the work, after which chapter 6 examines the broader premise that jazz was a socially progressive force in American popular culture. Part III concentrates on a topic that has entered into the arguments of each of the previous chapters: what is jazz improvisation? It outlines a pluralistic framework in which distinctive performance intentions distinguish distinctive kinds of jazz improvisation. This book is a comprehensive and valuable resource for any reader interested in the intersections between jazz and philosophy. (shrink)

Black magic (henceforth BM) is acting in an attempt to harm human beings through supernatural means. Examples include the employment of spells, the use of special curses, the burning of objects related to the purported victim, and the use of pins with voodoo dolls. For the sake of simplicity, we shall focus on attempts to kill through BM. The moral attitude towards BM has not been, as far as we know, significantly discussed in contemporary analytic philosophy. Yet the topic (...) brings up interesting questions and poses challenges, occasionally even reaching the level of paradoxes. Ideas of respecting persons, in particular, will be seen to be challenged by this form of magic. The notion of respecting persons will be treated here broadly and pluralistically. Indeed part of the interest in the discussion will be the unfolding of the diverse ways in which this term should be understood, and the contrasts between its various uses. Often, as we shall see, respect for persons and disrespect for them, in different senses, will co‐exist, and the dilemma will be one where avoiding some forms of disrespect will involve us in disrespect in other senses. (shrink)

Controversial Harlem-born rapper/singer, songwriter, and provocateuse Azealia Banks is the most famous, vocal, and visible proponent of Black Atlantic traditions in recent times—making a critical reckoning well overdue. I begin here by tracing Banks's engagement with Afro-Diasporic religions as a trajectory from vamp to bruja [witch]/santera to mayombera. A review of Banks's public statements reveals her growing commitment to championing “so-called voodoo” and urging other African Americans to do so as well. I argue that the release of Beyoncé's Lemonade (...) in 2016 catalyzed Banks's advocacy for Kongo-inspired Palo Mayombe, long overshadowed by Yorùbá-based orisha worship. I further demonstrate that Banks's espousal of Palo Mayombe has been bound up with her identity as a Womanist and dark-skinned, cisgender femme fatale. More than a political program, however, Banks's discursive constructions amount to a Black Atlantic metaphysics. Drawing on Irene Lara's formulation of “bruja positionalities,” I propose that the theoretical scaffolding for her metaphysics should be designated Brujx Womanism. Missteps notwithstanding, Banks emerges as a metaphysician, aspiring to repair Black bodies by re-membering Kongo traditions. In closing, I suggest that Banks's Brujx Womanism may contribute to the conceptualization of Conjure Feminism in four crucial respects. (shrink)

Throughout history up until present, many cultures have traditionally experienced the effects of verifiable healings, along with hexes, curses, witchcraft, voodoo, and other mysterious phenomena. These effects-many of which were elicited by unscientific means-were brought about by the beliefs and lore of the society. Even today, pharmaceutical companies use double- and triple-blind randomized studies in an attempt to exclude of the power of the mind over the body. In You Are the Placebo, Dr. Joe Dispenza explores the history, the (...) science, and the practical applications of the so-called placebo effect. Citing many amazing individual cases studies, this compelling book will empower you to personally use "the expectation of a particular outcome" to alter your internal states-as well as external reality-solely through the action of your mind. It offers the necessary understandings to change old beliefs and perceptions into new ones. In addition, it teaches a model of personal transformation that correlates with the placebo effect-without the need for any external influences ("placebos" such as sugar pills, saline injections, and so on). You Are the Placebo combines the latest research in neuroscience, biology, psychology, hypnosis, behavioral conditioning, and quantum physics to demystify the workings of the placebo effect. and show how the seemingly impossible can become possible. (shrink)

Dieses Buch bietet zum Jubiläumsjahr eine kurze Biographie von Paul K. Feyerabend, eine Einführung in ausgewählte Schlüsselwerke und ein kritisches Fazit zu seiner Aktualität. Der Inhalt Paul K. Feyerabend (1924-1994), Physiker, Philosoph und - nach eigenem Bekunden - erkenntnistheoretischer Anarchist, lehrte u.a. in Berlin, Bristol, Berkeley, Kassel, London, Yale und Zürich. Von den einen als Chaot oder Voodoo-Priester der Erkenntnistheorie gescholten, sehen andere in ihm den anregenden Provokateur, genialen Wissenschaftstheoretiker und überzeugten Anhänger des wissenschaftlichen Pluralismus und demokratischen Relativismus. Mit (...) dem Schlagwort,,anything goes" wollte Feyerabend kein neues wissenschaftstheoretisches Prinzip einführen, sondern die Ansprüche insbesondere des Kritischen Rationalismus zurückweisen, Wissenschaft ausschließlich nach rationalen Regeln zu betreiben. Bürgerinitiativen sollten nach Feyerabend die Filter seien, um brauchbare von unbrauchbaren Ideen und Weltsichten zu trennen. Mythen, Märchen gehören ebenso wie wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse zu den tradierten Mustern, mit deren Hilfe Menschen ihre Welt interpretieren und bewältigen. In seinen späten Jahren wandte sich Paul Feyerabend Jahren entschieden gegen die Intoleranz, Macht und Gewalt der,,westlichen" Kulturen. Die Zielgruppen Studierende und Wissenschaftler*innen Journalist*innen, Alltagsmenschen Der Autor Wolfgang Frindte, Prof. i. R. Dr. phil. habil.; 2008 bis 2017 Leiter der Abteilung Kommunikationspsychologie am Institut für Kommunikationswissenschaft der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena. Forschungsschwerpunkte: Terrorismusforschung, Antisemitismus, Rechtsextremismus, Medien und Gewalt. (shrink)

Alice Dunbar-Nelson is mostly remembered as a poet, activist, and ex-wife of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Her volume The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories (1899) has been largely overshadowed as a result. Yet, the collection contains a portfolio of heroines analogous and contemporaneous to the famed New Woman figure of the fin de siècle. In this article, I consider Dunbar-Nelson’s heroines in light of their New Woman-esque agency and autonomy as they find remedies and power in objects and materials (...) steeped in New Orleans’s cultural heritage. Ceded neither social nor political self-governance nor domestic comfort, this article reads these transcendental, metaphysical objects as sources of self-care. With close analysis of “The Goodness of St. Rocque,” “Tony’s Wife,” and “Little Miss Sophie,” I argue that Dunbar-Nelson’s protagonists exert influence over their lives, specifically in the negotiation of romantic relationships, through voodoo charms, Catholic candles, tarot cards, sewing machines, and knitting needles. Covering courtship, break-ups, and unhappy marriages, I demonstrate the ways in which these empowering spiritual objects respond to health concerns, including malnutrition and domestic violence, in turn, situating them as alternatives to patriarchal and historically racist medical institutions. Valorizing the cultural milieu of New Orleans and the customs of the Caribbean and European heritage, and thereby conveying Dunbar-Nelson’s resistance to white and male supremacist ideologies in late-nineteenth-century Southern America, the article ultimately assesses the parallels with (predominantly white) New Woman fiction, through shared themes of fraught heterosexual dynamics and women’s declining health. (shrink)

A movie star's daughter has mysteriously disappeared, raising suspicion and fear. As Officer Lorraine Page takes up the hunt, the race to claim the reward for finding Anna Louise Caley spirals into a trail of voodoo in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

These studies examined whether having thoughts related to an event before it occurs leads people to infer that they caused the event— even when such causation might otherwise seem magical. In Study 1, people perceived that they had harmed another person via a voodoo hex. These perceptions were more likely among those who had first been induced to harbor evil thoughts about their victim. In Study 2, spectators of a peer’s basketball-shooting performance were more likely to perceive that they (...) had influenced his success if they had first generated positive visualizations consistent with that success. Observers privy to those spectators’ visualizations made similar attributions about the spectators’ influence. Finally, additional studies suggested that these results occur even when the thought-about outcome is viewed as unwanted by the thinker and even in field settings where the relevant outcome is occurring as part of a live athletic competition. (shrink)

From uttering a prayer before boarding a plane, to exploring past lives through hypnosis, has superstition become pervasive in contemporary culture? Robert Park, the best-selling author of Voodoo Science, argues that it has. In Superstition, Park asks why people persist in superstitious convictions long after science has shown them to be ill-founded. He takes on supernatural beliefs from religion and the afterlife to New Age spiritualism and faith-based medical claims. He examines recent controversies and concludes that science is the (...) only way we have of understanding the world. Park sides with the forces of reason in a world of continuing and, he fears, increasing superstition. Chapter by chapter, he explains how people too easily mistake pseudoscience for science. He discusses parapsychology, homeopathy, and acupuncture; he questions the existence of souls, the foundations of intelligent design, and the power of prayer; he asks for evidence of reincarnation and astral projections; and he challenges the idea of heaven. Throughout, he demonstrates how people's blind faith, and their confidence in suspect phenomena and remedies, are manipulated for political ends. Park shows that science prevails when people stop fooling themselves. Compelling and precise, Superstition takes no hostages in its quest to provoke. In shedding light on some very sensitive--and Park would say scientifically dubious--issues, the book is sure to spark discussion and controversy. (shrink)

Asylum seekers who claim asylum in the United Kingdom flee from a diverse range of threats of persecution, particularly in the MENA (Middle East & North African) region. These threats may comprise of war, tribal violence and trafficking to honour-killings, female genital mutilation and witchcraft. Some of these threats may be alien to Western immigration tribunals as they either do not occur in their respective countries or are not understood, particularly because of the intricate religious and cultural nature of the (...) threat in question. For example, a single woman who has had sexual relations outside of marriage would be regarded as having insulted tribal and familial honour in some regions of MENA countries. Here, the word ‘tribe’, which in Arabic is _‘qabilah’_, has a distinct historical, cultural and lexical meaning that lawyers, judges and policy-makers may not be aware of; the same may be said of _‘nikah’_ (marriage) or _‘Voodoo’_ (a type of witchcraft) and many other terminologies. These terminologies are intimately linked to the experiences of immigration applicants and asylum seekers who desire to express their fear of persecution to lawyers, judges and policymakers. Using two real-life case studies involving a Yemeni immigration applicant and Nigerian asylum seeker respectively and my practitioner experience as a country expert having written 140 reports, I will critically explore the value of a primary, semiotic understanding of key religious, cultural and linguistic dimensions in asylum claims (as opposed to secondary source evidence). I argue that the UK’s immigration tribunal system should place more value on how language is embodied within the MENA regions. I do not wish to just highlight this issue but semiotically analyse immigration and asylum procedure, the arguments of the Home Office and tribunals in accepting or rejecting claims and suggest substantive reform by broadening the nature of evidence. Using Peirce’s framework of semiotics, a sign (representamen) is the fundamental entry point to comprehend an object—an object being the referent of a sign. Once we understand a sign and its object, we arrive at the interpretant which is the sense or meaning derived from the object. This triad relationship of sign, object and interpretant constitutes semiois. Here, I argue that analysing the nature of a sign and what it purports to represent can provide us with a theoretical basis by which to reformulate the mechanisms which judges and lawyers use to understand religious, cultural and linguistic evidence in asylum claims. It is through signs that we can arrive at a deeper meaning and the larger picture of the intricate components of an asylum seeker’s claim thereby accessing their semiotic code. (shrink)

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Haiti has often been referred to as a “mystery,” and “striking similarities” between patterns of disease in Haiti and in sub-Saharan Africa are often underlined. The occurrence of AIDS in Haitians has also led to the postulation of a number of theories positing a Haitian origin for AIDS and linking the syndrome in Haitians to voodoo. A review of the epidemiological data gathered and published in the early years of the pandemic suggests that these “exotic” (...) theories are not necessary to explain the Haitian epidemic, which is clearly linked not to Africa but to the United States. Patterns of risk identified among many of the first Haitians with AIDS are similar to risk factors identified in North America and Europe (same-sex contact with an HIV-infected individual and blood transfusion). The Haitian epidemicsubsequently came to resemble patterns seen in sub-Saharan Africa, where AIDS is predominantly a heterosexually transmitted disease. Similarly shifting patterns are described for several other Caribbean nations, underlining the importance of a historical analysis of the Caribbean pandemic as well as the necessity to link analysis of local epidemiology of AIDS/HIV to larger considerations of political economy. (shrink)

Introduction: The quickened and the dead -- Ontology for philologists : Nietzsche, body, subject -- "Be your self!" : Nietzsche as educator -- The life of thought : Nietzsche's truth perspectivism and the will to power -- Of slaves and masters : the birth of good and evil -- Moments of excess : the making and unmaking of the subject -- Lacan, desire, and the originating function of loss -- The word that sees me : the nexus of image and (...) sign -- The nothing as the reverse side of Lacan's mirror -- Nietzsche is dead, long live Nietzsche : in memory of paternal ghosts -- The "insiders" : Nietzsche's secret teaching and the invention of "the philosopher of the future" -- Finding one's home in the nothingness of Nietzsche's text -- Nietzsche's excessive demand and the question of the adulterous queen's desire -- High and low : the hierarchical structure of Nietzsche's texts -- Inside and outside : Nietzsche "incorporated"; or, Who incorporates whom in the act of reading Nietzsche? -- The father's indulgence of the prodigal son : ambiguity and the limits of "the position" -- The contagion of affect in Netzsche : Klein, Krell, Bataille -- Doing time with Melanie Klein : renouncing "the bad breast," mourning the loss of "the good breast" -- "Motivating this writingéis a fear of going crazy" : how Klein might read Georges Bataille sur Nietzsche -- David Farrell Krell's "novel" approach to reading Nietzsche -- Family romances and textual encounters : Sarah Kofman reading Nietzsche -- Reading Nietzsche I : explosions -- Autobiography or autothanography : killing with words in Rue Ordener, Rue Labat -- Reading Nietzsche II : le pris des juifs; Nietzsche, les juifs, l'anti-semitisme -- The vision, the riddle, and the vicious circle : Pierre Klossowski's reading of Nietzsche's sick body -- On the continuity and disjunction between the body and language -- Exquisite delirium : the thought of eternal return -- The conspiracy of philosopher/villains : Nietzsche/Klossowski/Sade -- From cannibalism to voodoo : the creation and control of the subject of Nietzsche's writing. (shrink)