Despite its pervasiveness, the concept of ‘levels of organization’ has received relatively little attention in its own right. I propose here an emerging approach that posits ‘levels’ as a fragmentary concept situated within an interest-relative matrix of operational usage within scientific practice. To this end I propose one important component of meaning, namely the epistemic goal motivating the term’s usage, which recovers a remarkably conserved and sufficiently unifying significance attributable to ‘levels’ across different instances of usage. This epistemic goal, to (...) provide structure to scientific problems, delegates tasks whose execution generates the term’s expressed content in a given instance. This treatment of levels does not diminish the concept’s general importance to science, but rather allows for its use in, and usefulness for, scientific practice to be better contextualized to particular tasks encompassing varying breadths of activity. (shrink)

Despite the ubiquity of “levels of organization” in the scientific literature, a nascent “levels skepticism” now claims that the concept of levels is an inherently flawed, misleading, or otherwise inadequate notion for understanding how life scientists produce knowledge about the natural world. However, levels skeptics rely on the maligned “layer-cake” account of levels stemming from Oppenheim and Putnam’s defense of the unity of science for their critical commentary. Recourse to layer-cake levels is understandable, as it is arguably the default conception (...) of levels in philosophy. However, relying on this conception of levels undermines the initial plausibility of general dismissals of the concept, because the problems skeptics identify within the “basic idea” of the concept “levels” are merely ones already widely acknowledged in this conception. I illustrate this “guilt by association” by looking at the embedded role of “levels” in articulating intertheoretical reductionism during the latter part of the 20th century. I conclude by suggesting a methodological framework focusing on local usage patterns as a promising means for future analysis of the levels concept. (shrink)

The concept of 'levels of organization' has come under fire recently as being useless for scientific and philosophical purposes. In this paper, we show that 'levels' is actually a remarkably resilient and constructive conceptual tool that can be, and in fact is, used for a variety of purposes. To this effect, we articulate an account of the importance of the levels concept seen in light of its status as a major organizing concept of biology. We argue that the usefulness of (...) ‘levels’ is best seen in the heuristic contributions the concept makes to treating and structuring scientific problems. We illustrate this with two examples from biological research. (shrink)

Following its initial development in the 1920’s and 1930’s, by mid-century the concept of “levels of organization” began to disperse throughout the life science textbook literature. Among other early textbooks that first applied the levels concept, Eugene P. Odum’s usage of the notion in his textbook series Fundamentals of Ecology (and his later series Ecology) stands out due to the marked emphasis placed on the concept as a foundational, erotetically-oriented organizing principle. In this paper, I examine Odum’s efforts toward advocating (...) the levels concept in ecology in light of the concept’s wider uptake in biology around that time. (shrink)

Recent work on epistemic integration in the life sciences has emphasized the importance of integration in thinking about explanatory practice in science, particularly for articulating a robust alternative to reductionism and anti-reductionism. This paper analyzes the role of models in balancing the relative contributions of lower- and higher-level epistemic resources involved in this process. Integration between multiple disciplines proceeds by constructing a problem agenda (Love 2008), a set of interrelated problems that structures the problem space of a complex phenomenon that (...) is investigated by many disciplines. The usage of models, it is argued, mark changes in a phenomenon’s problem agenda depending on the task that is expected of it. Particularly, it emphasizes the sensitivity of a problem agenda to changing attitudes in the solutions to the conceptual and empirical items constituting that agenda. The analysis will proceed by means of a case study, the Reichardt motion detector, a model that has been vital to the methodological and conceptual development of research on motion detection, especially in invertebrates. As will be seen, the history of the Reichardt model will exemplify the dynamic changes that occur in the interdisciplinary negotiations that comprise the active efforts of various sciences working to integrate their resources. (shrink)

Transcendental arguments are not popular in contemporary philosophy of science. They are typically seen as antinaturalistic and incapable of providing explanatory force in accounting for natural phenomena. However, when viewed as providing intelligibility to complicated concepts used in scientific reasoning, a concrete and productive role is recoverable for transcendental reasoning in philosophy of science. In this article I argue that the resources, and possibly the need, for such a role are available within a thoroughly naturalistic framework garnered from the work (...) of Hasok Chang and William Wimsatt. (shrink)

With the advent of powerful parallel computers, efforts have commenced to simulate complete mammalian brains. However, so far none of these efforts has produced outcomes close to explaining even the behavioral complexities of animals. In this article, we suggest four challenges that ground this shortcoming. First, we discuss the connection between hypothesis testing and simulations. Typically, efforts to simulate complete mammalian brains lack a clear hypothesis. Second, we treat complications related to a lack of parameter constraints for large-scale simulations. To (...) demonstrate the severity of this issue, we review work on two small-scale neural systems, the crustacean stomatogastric ganglion and the Caenorhabditis elegans nervous system. Both of these small nervous systems are very thoroughly, but not completely understood, mainly due to issues with variable and plastic parameters. Third, we discuss the hierarchical structure of neural systems as a principled obstacle to whole-brain simulations. Different organizational levels imply qualitative differences not only in structure, but in choice and appropriateness of investigative technique and perspective. The challenge of reconciling different levels also undergirds the challenge of simulating and hypothesis testing, as modeling a system is not the same thing as simulating it. Fourth, we point out that animal brains are information processing systems tailored very specifically for the ecological niches the respective animals live in. (shrink)

This commentary relates Hoerl & McCormack's dual systems perspective to models of cognitive development emphasizing representational redescription and the role of culturally constructed tools, including language, in providing flexible formats for thinking. We describe developmental processes that enable children to construct a mental time line, situate themselves in time, and overcome the primacy of the here and now.

The causal exclusion argument suggests that mental causes are excluded in favour of the underlying physical causes that do all the causal work. Recently, a debate has emerged concerning the possibility of avoiding this conclusion by adopting Woodward's interventionist theory of causation. Both proponents and opponents of the interventionist solution crucially rely on the notion of supervenience when formulating their positions. In this article, we consider the relation between interventionism and supervenience in detail and argue that importing supervenience relations into (...) the interventionist framework is deeply problematic. However, rather than reject interventionist solutions to exclusion wholesale, we wish to propose that the problem lies with the concept of supervenience. This would open the door for a moderate defence of the interventionist solution to the exclusion argument. (shrink)

The subject of this edited volume is the idea of levels of organization: roughly, the idea that the natural world is segregated into part-whole relationships of increasing spatiotemporal scale and complexity. The book comprises a collection of essays that raise the idea of levels into its own topic of analysis. Owing to the wide prominence of the idea of levels, the scope of the volume is aimed at theoreticians, philosophers, and practicing researchers of all stripes in the life sciences. The (...) volume’s contributions reflect this diversity, and draw from fields such as developmental biology, evolutionary biology, molecular biology, ecology, cell biology, and neuroscience. The book presents wide-ranging novel insights on causation and levels, the hierarchical structure of evolution, the role of levels in biological theory, and more. (shrink)

Understanding the relationship between wilderness outings and the resulting experience has been a central theme in resource-based, outdoor recreation research for nearly 50 years. The authors provide a review and synthesis of literature that examines how people, over time, build relationships with wilderness places and express their identities as consequences of multiple, ongoing wilderness engagements (i.e., continued participation). The paper reviews studies of everyday places and those specifically protected for wilderness and backcountry qualities. Beginning with early origins and working through (...) contemporary research the authors synthesize what diverse social scientists have learned about the long-term and continual nature of wilderness participation and its impact on the formation of identity. The thrust of the paper points researchers, planners, and managers in non-traditional directions and reframes goals and objectives for visitor planning and management in wilderness and other protected areas. (shrink)

Researchers have long debated the extent to which an individual’s skin tone influences their perceived race. Brooks and Gwinn demonstrated that the race of surrounding faces can affect the perceived skin tone of a central target face without changing perceived racial typicality, suggesting that skin lightness makes a small contribution to judgments of race compared to morphological cues. However, the lack of a consistent light source may have undermined the reliability of skin tone cues, encouraging observers to rely disproportionately (...) on morphological cues instead. The current study addresses this concern by using 3D models of male faces with typically Black African or White European appearances that are illuminated by the same light source. Observers perceived target faces surrounded by White faces to have darker skin than those surrounded by Black faces, particularly for faces of intermediate lightness. However, when asked to judge racial typicality, a small assimilation effect was evident, with target faces perceived as more stereotypically White when surrounded by White than when surrounded by Black faces at intermediate levels of typicality. This evidence of assimilation effects for perceived racial typicality despite concurrent contrast effects on perceived skin lightness supports the previous conclusion that perceived skin lightness has little influence on judgments of racial typicality for racially ambiguous faces, even when lighting is consistent. (shrink)

This study asserts that a philosophical affinity exists between Socrates and Ulrich, the -man without qualities- of Musil's novel. Both figures are characterized by their negativity and their opposition to institutionalized values, and both are considered dangerous to the state. In exploring this relationship, conceptual parallels emerge in both Kierkegaard's and Nietzsche's depictions of the Socratic character. These parallels help to define Ulrich's function in "Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, " particularly in relation to Musil's understanding of truth and moral value (...) in the world.". (shrink)

This article identifies and compares meanings of wildfire risk mitigation for stakeholders in the Front Range of Colorado, USA. We examine the case of a collaborative partnership sponsored by government agencies and directed to decrease hazardous fuels in interface areas. Data were collected by way of key informant interviews and focus groups. The analysis is guided by the Circuit of Culture model in communication research. We found both shared and differing meanings between members of this partnership (the ‘‘producers’’) and other (...) stakeholders not formally in the partnership (the ‘‘consumers’’). We conclude that those promoting the partnership’s project to mitigate risk are primarily aligned with a discourse of scientific management. Stakeholders outside the partnership follow a discourse of community. We argue that failure to recognize and account for differences in the way risk mitigation is framed and related power dynamics could hamper the communicational efforts of the collaborative partnership and impact goals for fuels reduction. We recommend ways that both groups can capitalize on shared meanings and how agency managers and decision makers can build better working relationships with interface communities and other external stakeholders. (shrink)

In the most recent monograph on William of Ockham’s political writings, Takashi Shogimen rightly asserts that “there is no such thing as the ‘standard’ view of the Venerabilis Inceptor as a political thinker.”1 This could be said of many medieval writers, but the extent to which it is true of Ockham is noteworthy. Who else has been described as both “a constitutional liberal” and “an anarchist?”2 Was he a “meticulous deconstructor of church and polity” who “irredeemably undermined the foundations of (...) institutions” or “a true theologian” caught up in a “political and doctrinal hurricane?”3 As Tierney notes, we are “not dealing with a schizophrenic,” so it is impossible for these diverse categorizations of Ockham’s... (shrink)

Decades of research conducted in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, & Democratic (WEIRD) societies have led many scholars to conclude that the use of mental states in moral judgment is a human cognitive universal, perhaps an adaptive strategy for selecting optimal social partners from a large pool of candidates. However, recent work from a more diverse array of societies suggests there may be important variation in how much people rely on mental states, with people in some societies judging accidental harms just (...) as harshly as intentional ones. To explain this variation, we develop and test a novel cultural evolutionary theory proposing that the intensity of kin-based institutions will favor less attention to mental states when judging moral violations. First, to better illuminate the historical distribution of the use of intentions in moral judgment, we code and analyze anthropological observations from the Human Area Relations Files. This analysis shows that notions of strict liability—wherein the role for mental states is reduced—were common across diverse societies around the globe. Then, by expanding an existing vignette-based experimental dataset containing observations from 321 people in a diverse sample of 10 societies, we show that the intensity of a society's kin-based institutions can explain a substantial portion of the population-level variation in people's reliance on intentions in three different kinds of moral judgments. Together, these lines of evidence suggest that people's use of mental states has coevolved culturally to fit their local kin-based institutions. We suggest that although reliance on mental states has likely been a feature of moral judgment in human communities over historical and evolutionary time, the relational fluidity and weak kin ties of today's WEIRD societies position these populations' psychology at the extreme end of the global and historical spectrum. (shrink)

An assessment of Dennett's philosophy by various philosophers. Includes Dennett's responses.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reinhold Niebuhr’s Paradox: Paralysis, Violence, and Pragmatism by Daniel Malotky, and: Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics by Reinhold Niebuhr, and: An Interpretation of Christian Ethics by Reinhold NiebuhrDaniel A. MorrisReinhold Niebuhr’s Paradox: Paralysis, Violence, and Pragmatism By Daniel Malotky LANHAM, MD: LEXINGTON BOOKS, 2011. 124 PP. $52.50Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics By Reinhold Niebuhr, (...) with a foreword by Cornel West LOUISVILLE: WESTMINSTER JOHN KNOX PRESS, 2013 (ORIG. PUB. 1932) 320 PP. $30.00An Interpretation of Christian Ethics By Reinhold Niebuhr, with an introduction by Edmund N. Santurri LOUISVILLE: WESTMINSTER JOHN KNOX PRESS, 2013 (ORIG. PUB. 1935). 278 PP. $30.00Have we been passing through a revival of interest in Reinhold Niebuhr since Barack Obama reported to David Brooks in 2007 that Niebuhr “is one of my favorite philosophers”? Or did Niebuhr’s work never go out of style in the first place? Whether current publishing trends reflect a revival or the norm, these three books highlight Niebuhr’s enduring relevance. They also show that Niebuhr’s lasting influence has not made him immune to criticism. Perhaps most important, they demonstrate that his insights can speak productively to contemporary issues whose urgency he may not have recognized.The new editions of An Interpretation of Christian Ethics and Moral Man and Immoral Society from Westminster John Knox Press contain welcome contributions to scholarship on Niebuhr. Originally delivered as the 1934 Rauschenbusch Memorial Lectures at Colgate-Rochester Divinity School, Interpretation was first published in 1935. A 1956 edition added a preface in which Niebuhr summarizes the text’s central claims and expresses a desire to revise many of his arguments. The new edition of Interpretation retains Niebuhr’s 1956 preface, and adds an introduction by Edmund N. Santurri, which precedes the preface. In his introduction, Santurri claims that this text “may well be Reinhold Niebuhr’s most important work in theological ethics,” despite Niebuhr’s confession of embarrassment in the preface (ix; italics in the original). For Santurri, Interpretation provides much-needed theological background for the ethical and political claims in Moral Man and Immoral Society. Moreover, Santurri holds [End Page 207] that the important features of Niebuhr’s mature theological anthropology were present in nascent form in Interpretation. Thus, the text’s lasting influence is clear: To understand the ethical and political insights in the other works in Niebuhr’s corpus, one must understand the developing theological anthropology presented in Interpretation.Having made this case for the text’s importance, Santurri devotes the bulk of his introduction to reviewing four arguments that critics level against Niebuhr. They are, briefly, feminist arguments against the portrayal of agape as self-sacrifice, just war arguments against the claim that the Gospels prescribe nonresistance, Anabaptist arguments against Constantinian Christianity (which Santurri traces to the differing soteriologies of Yoder and Niebuhr), and theological arguments that Niebuhr’s doctrine of God is incoherent. Santurri concludes that the first three critiques of Niebuhr ultimately fail for a variety of reasons, but suggests the fourth critique is valid. Even if he dismisses the first three arguments too easily, this is a clear, responsible, and thorough review of critical receptions of Niebuhr. The footnotes point the way to excellent resources, orienting readers to four important conversations in short order. Scholars and graduate students who study Niebuhr will benefit from this introduction, as will readers who desire a concise guide to critical receptions of Niebuhr’s work.Originally published in 1932, Moral Man and Immoral Society is more recognizable than Interpretation as one of Niebuhr’s landmark works. Perhaps for this reason, Westminster John Knox Press produced another edition of this text in 2002. That edition included an introduction by Langdon B. Gilkey, which appraised the influence of Moral Man in part by describing the fresh perspective it brought to American theological ethics in the early twentieth century. The 2013 edition of Moral Man retains Gilkey’s introduction (as well as a 1960 preface by Niebuhr), which is preceded by Cornel West’s new foreword to the book. In his brief foreword, West claims that this text “is not only... (shrink)

Plato's dialogues frequently criticize traditional Greek myth, yet Plato also integrates myth with his writing. Daniel S. Werner confronts this paradox through an in-depth analysis of the Phaedrus, Plato's most mythical dialogue. Werner argues that the myths of the Phaedrus serve several complex functions: they bring nonphilosophers into the philosophical life; they offer a starting point for philosophical inquiry; they unify the dialogue as a literary and dramatic whole; they draw attention to the limits of language and the limits (...) of knowledge; and they allow Plato to co-opt cultural authority as a way of defining and legitimating the practice of philosophy. Platonic myth, as a species of traditional tale, is thus both distinct from philosophical dialectic and similar to it. Ultimately, the most powerful effect of Platonic myth is the way in which it leads readers to participate in Plato's dialogues and to engage in a process of self-examination. (shrink)

Contemporary Philosophy in Focus will offer a series of introductory volumes to many of the dominant philosophical thinkers of the current age. Each volume will consist of newly commissioned essays that will cover all the major contributions of a preeminent philosopher in a systematic and accessible manner. Author of such groundbreaking and influential books as Consciousness Explained and Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Daniel C. Dennett has reached a huge general and professional audience that extends way beyond the confines of academic (...) philosophy. He has made significant contributions to the study of consciousness, the development of the child's mind, cognitive ethnology, explanation in the social sciences, artificial intelligence, and evolutionary theory. This volume is the only truly introductory collection that traces these connections, explores the implications of Dennett's work, and furnishes the non-specialist with a fully-rounded account of why Dennett is such an important voice on the philosophical scene. (shrink)

This paper is about the nature of God’s pre-creation knowledge of possible creatures. I distinguish three theories: non-qualitative singularism, qualitative singularism, and qualitative generalism, which differ in terms of whether the relevant knowledge is qualitative or non-qualitative, and whether God has singular or merely general knowledge of creatures. My main aim is to argue that qualitative singularism does not depend on a version of the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles to the effect that, necessarily, qualitatively indiscernible individuals are identical. It (...) follows that qualitative singularism does not depend on the view that possible creatures categorically have qualitative individual essences. (shrink)

David Marr's theory of vision has been a rich source of inspiration, fascination and confusion. I will suggest that some of this confusion can be traced to discrepancies between the way Marr developed his theory in practice and the way he suggested such a theory ought to be developed in his explicit metatheoretical remarks. I will address claims that Marr's theory may be seen as an optimizing theory, along with the attendant suggestion that optimizing assumptions may be inappropriate for cognitive (...) mechanisms just as anti-adaptationists have argued they are inappropriate for other physiological mechanisms. I will discuss the nature of optimizing assumptions and theories. Considering various difficulties in identifying and assessing optimizing assumptions, I will suggest that Marr's theory is not purely an optimizing theory and that reaction to Marr on this issue prompts interesting considerations for the development of inter-disciplinary constraints in the cognitive and brain sciences. (shrink)

In a 2007 interview, then senator and presidential candidate, Barack Obama, called Reinhold Niebuhr, “one of my favorite philosophers.” When his interviewer, David Brooks, followed by asking, “What do you take away from him?” Obama answered, “I take away the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. (...) I take away . . . the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard, and not swinging from naïve idealism to bitter realism.”1 One part of Niebuhr’s political theology that Obama has clearly embraced is Niebuhr’s justification .. (shrink)

Mark Noll, America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln Brooks Holifield, American Theology: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War Intellectual history, after a generation of neglect, is suddenly getting attention again in the United States. Giving impetus to this renewal of energy are two major works on American religious thought before the Civil War: Mark Noll's America's God and Brooks Holifield's American Theology. Both are big books, over 600 pages each, and (...) they address a big topic stretching across time and space: the grand tradition of American theology, now a lost art. They treat a time when Christian theology as an intellectual activity enjoyed considerably more prestige and cultural influence than it does today, and surely it has seldom been so innovative and diverse as in the period they treat. Both books have been written by highly respected scholars, deeply learned in the relevant primary and secondary sources. The danger in reviewing such large undertakings is that reviewers will not treat them as a whole but simply grumble that their own specialty doesn't get enough attention: the historian of gender wants more about women, the historian of science more about his subject, etc. These books deserve to be evaluated in toto. Having been conceived and written independently, even though more or less simultaneously, they demonstrate contrasting visions of how to deal with their subject. The two books typify the “external” and “internal” approaches to intellectual history respectively, illustrating for the reader strengths and limitations of the two approaches as well as their complementarity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.1 (2003) 62-79 [Access article in PDF] Literature Itself:The New Criticism and Aesthetic Experience Daniel Green I AFTER ALMOST TWO DECADES of tumult and transformation in university departments that still claim literature as part of their disciplinary domain, what is most remarkable about literary study at the beginning of the twenty-first century is how similar it is to what passed for such study at the (...) beginning of the twentieth century. Like philology one hundred years ago, academic literary study today—at least at the most eminent universities and in the most prestigious journals—is a highly esoteric activity, unlikely to appeal to anyone outside its own "professional" boundaries, anyone whose foremost interest in works of literature is simply to read them. It is, therefore, an endeavor that could hardly exist outside the university's institutional protection, and it is most strikingly concerned not with the appreciation of the intrinsic qualities of literature but with the historical and cultural "knowledge" that can be acquired from works of literature through a special kind of analysis. The effort, chronicled by Gerald Graff in Professing Literature, to make "literature itself" the focus of academic study and to establish "aesthetic criticism" as the primary mode of literary study must surely be judged a failure, the current academic scene clearly dominated by the sort of scholars Graff terms "investigators." 1But of course the motives for rejecting the merely literary as a focus of study are quite different among current scholarly investigators as compared to the philologists of 1901. The attitude of the latter can probably be captured in the words of one of them quoted by Graff: "Why then waste time and brains in thrashing over again something which is after all only subjective opinion? Mere aesthetic theorizing [End Page 62] should be left to the magazine writer or to the really gifted critic" (p. 124). Such "researchers" did not deny the value of reading works of literature; they simply considered this value to be essentially "subjective," not an appropriate object of academic scrutiny. While these remarks do imply some condescension toward the "really gifted critic" and this critic's "mere aesthetic theorizing," they do not repudiate the very idea of an aesthetic approach to literature. The present generation of academics engaged in the investigation of literature, on the other hand, have repudiated the aesthetic approach, either explicitly, through the well-publicized critiques of the canon, of the very notion of the great work, or of the remaining approaches still associated with New Criticism, or implicitly through the gradual establishment of cultural investigation as the new norm for the professional training of graduate students and as the dominant mode of analysis in the influential journals. Moreover, the primary motive behind the renunciation of the aesthetic has more to do with politics than with methodology: for these scholars, the aesthetic is literally useless, quite irrelevant to the paramount goal of "intervening" in a continuing ideological struggle that is thought to be the main business of the university scholar.In the context of the history of modern literary criticism (as opposed to the history of the American university), the current situation mirrors that which prompted the emergence of The New Criticism in the 1930s. Although Vincent Leitch identifies "the evocative mode of Impressionist criticism, the moralism of Neo-Humanism, the anti-modernist cultural criticism of Mencken and Van Wyck Brooks," as well as the "sociologizing" of Marxist criticism" as the collective bêtes noires of the New Critics, it was clearly the latter they considered to be the most unwelcome. Not only had it effectively eclipsed the other practices, but it could be said to have exhibited most of those characteristics against which New Criticism expressed the deepest antipathy. 2 Compared to the close reading New Critics would espouse, Marxist criticism was superficial, willing to settle for the most readily available interpretation (according to the Marxists' own critical assumptions), moralistic, committed to the idea that the best literature was that which could be shown to be good for you, historicist, concerned to place works... (shrink)

Trust is central to the therapeutic relationship, but the epistemic asymmetries between the expert healthcare provider and the patient make the patient, the trustor, vulnerable to the provider, the trustee. The narratives of pain sufferers provide helpful insights into the experience of pain at the juncture of trust, expert knowledge, and the therapeutic relationship. While stories of pain sufferers having their testimonies dismissed are well documented, pain sufferers continue to experience their testimonies as being epistemically downgraded. This kind of epistemic (...) injustice has received limited treatment in bioethics. In this paper, we examine how a climate of distrust in pain management may facilitate what Fricker calls epistemic injustice. We critically interrogate the processes through which pain sufferers are vulnerable to specific kinds of epistemic injustice, such as testimonial injustice. We also examine how healthcare institutions and practices privilege some kinds of evidence and ways of knowing while excluding certain patient testimonies from epistemic consideration. We argue that providers ought to avoid epistemic injustice in pain management by striving toward epistemic humility. Epistemic humility, as a form of epistemic justice, may be the kind disposition required to correct the harmful prejudices that may arise through testimonial exchange in chronic pain management. (shrink)

Poor ethical decision–making costs industry billions of dollars a year and damages the images of corporations. Thus, by answering the question ‘Why do individuals behave as they do when confronted with ethical issues?’ ethical theory can provide businesses with a means to create a more ethical climate and a more successful operation. This study tested the Ethical Decision–Making Model with accountability (Beu & Buckley 2001), which uses theory that suggests that ethical behavior is influenced by the individual, the issue, social (...) relationships (accountability), and the organization in which the employee is embedded (Brass, Butterfield & Skaggs 1988; Frink & Klimoski 1998). The results showed that individuals’ thought processes (cognitive moral development), personalities (locus of control, hostility and aggression, Machiavellianism), and gender influence how they respond to ethical dilemmas, as well as the salience of the moral issue (moral intensity) and the environmental context (work/school). (shrink)

Poor ethical decision–making costs industry billions of dollars a year and damages the images of corporations. Thus, by answering the question ‘Why do individuals behave as they do when confronted with ethical issues?’ ethical theory can provide businesses with a means to create a more ethical climate and a more successful operation. This study tested the Ethical Decision–Making Model with accountability (Beu & Buckley 2001), which uses theory that suggests that ethical behavior is influenced by the individual, the issue, social (...) relationships (accountability), and the organization in which the employee is embedded (Brass, Butterfield & Skaggs 1988; Frink & Klimoski 1998). The results showed that individuals’ thought processes (cognitive moral development), personalities (locus of control, hostility and aggression, Machiavellianism), and gender influence how they respond to ethical dilemmas, as well as the salience of the moral issue (moral intensity) and the environmental context (work/school). (shrink)

_Why Plato Wrote_ argues that Plato was not only the world’s first systematic political philosopher, but also the western world’s first think-tank activist and message man. Shows that Plato wrote to change Athenian society and thereby transform Athenian politics Offers accessible discussions of Plato’s philosophy of language and political theory Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2011.

High temporal resolution event-related brain potential and electroencephalographic coherence studies of the neural substrate of short-term storage in working memory indicate that the sustained coactivation of both prefrontal cortex and the posterior cortical systems that participate in the initial perception and comprehension of the retained information are involved in its storage. These studies further show that short-term storage mechanisms involve an increase in neural synchrony between prefrontal cortex and posterior cortex and the enhanced activation of long-term memory representations of material (...) held in short-term memory. This activation begins during the encoding/comprehension phase and evidently is prolonged into the retention phase by attentional drive from prefrontal cortex control systems. A parsimonious interpretation of these findings is that the long-term memory systems associated with the posterior cortical processors provide the necessary representational basis for working memory, with the property of short-term memory decay being primarily due to the posterior system. In this view, there is no reason to posit specialized neural systems whose functions are limited to those of short-term storage buffers. Prefrontal cortex provides the attentional pointer system for maintaining activation in the appropriate posterior processing systems. Short-term memory capacity and phenomena such as displacement of information in short-term memory are determined by limitations on the number of pointers that can be sustained by the prefrontal control systems. Key Words: coherence; event-related potentials; imaging; long-term memory; memory; short-term memory; working memory. (shrink)

_Why Plato Wrote_ argues that Plato was not only the world’s first systematic political philosopher, but also the western world’s first think-tank activist and message man. Shows that Plato wrote to change Athenian society and thereby transform Athenian politics Offers accessible discussions of Plato’s philosophy of language and political theory Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2011.