_In this lively and groundbreaking book, arts educator Marit Dewhurst examines why art is an effective way to engage students in thinking about the role they might play in addressing social injustice._ Based on interviews and observations of sixteen high schoolers participating in an activist arts class at a New York City museum, Dewhurst identifies three learning processes common to the act of creating art that have an impact on social justice: connecting, questioning, and translating. Noting that (...) “one of the challenges of social justice art education has been the difficulty of naming effective strategies that can be used across multiple contexts,” Dewhurst outlines core strategies for an “activist arts pedagogy” and offers concrete suggestions for educators seeking to incorporate activist art projects inside or outside formal school settings. _Social Justice Art _seeks to give common language to educators and others who are looking to expand and refine their practices in an emerging field, whether they work in art education, social justice programming, or youth development. (shrink)

__Teachers Bridging Difference_ describes how educators can move out of their comfort zones and practice connecting with others across differences to become culturally responsive teachers. _Based on a course developed for preservice teachers, the book illustrates how educators can draw on the visual arts as a resource to explore their own identities and those of their students, and how to increase their understanding of the ways our lives intersect across sociocultural differences. Drawing on scholarship from multiple disciplines and from her (...) own experience, Marit Dewhurst identifies four stances designed to help educators connect with students in today’s multicultural classrooms. To practice these stances, the book introduces eight arts-based activities that can be used by educators in multiple contexts. Ranging from community maps and conversation portraits to scenario comics and reflection zines, the activities are designed to be accessible to even those with little arts experience and can be executed with a wide variety of materials and media. Unique and timely, _Teachers Bridging Difference _is an arts-based tool kit for teachers interested in exploring issues of identity and difference as a foundation for creating a more just and equal society. (shrink)

This article describes four doctoral students' process of coming together to support each other's work. What emerged was a powerful space of learning and a framework on research for social change. The authors hosted a 2-hour reflection session, which was recorded and transcribed. Text of that session appears in this article along with discussion of (a) key principles of the social change framework, (b) the ways the students came to take ownership over their work and to collaborate, and (c) guidance (...) for other researchers working against the isolation and competition that is too common in the academy. (shrink)

Whilst much has been said about the implications of predictive processing for our scientific understanding of cognition, there has been comparatively little discussion of how this new paradigm fits with our everyday understanding of the mind, i.e. folk psychology. This paper aims to assess the relationship between folk psychology and predictive processing, which will first require making a distinction between two ways of understanding folk psychology: as propositional attitude psychology and as a broader folk psychological discourse. It will be argued (...) that folk psychology in this broader sense is compatible with predictive processing, despite the fact that there is an apparent incompatibility between predictive processing and a literalist interpretation of propositional attitude psychology. The distinction between these two kinds of folk psychology allows us to accept that our scientific usage of folk concepts requires revision, whilst rejecting the suggestion that we should eliminate folk psychology entirely. (shrink)

Three experiments investigated response times for remember and know responses in recognition memory. RTs to remember responses were faster than RTs to know responses, regardless of whether the remember–know decision was preceded by an old/new decision or was made without a preceding old/new decision . The finding of faster RTs for R responses was also found when remember–know decisions were made retrospectively. These findings are inconsistent with dual-process models of recognition memory, which predict that recollection is slower and more effortful (...) than familiarity. Word frequency did not influence RTs, but remember responses were faster for words than for nonwords. We argue that the difference in RTs to remember and know responses reflects the time taken to make old/new decisions on the basis of the type of information activated at test. (shrink)

The target article criticises reductionist programs in cognitive science for failing to take into account important explanatory features of the organism's physical embodiment and task environment. My aim in this commentary is to show how such features are increasingly being taken seriously by (some) researchers in cognitive neuroscience, who describe the functional activity of neural structures in terms that are context-sensitive rather than intrinsic. This approach can allow us to take seriously the concerns presented in Gallagher’s [2019] target article without (...) having to completely give up on neuroscientific explanations of human behaviour. (shrink)

A common complaint among those involved in teaching the educational foundations is the reluctance of many trainee teachers to engage in issues of educational theory. This is particularly apparent with those trainees who are more concerned with managing classrooms of children than grappling with what are often abstract and difficult ideas. This paper considers the current use of educational stories as a pedagogical strategy in teacher training, and a story that has been used in this way is presented. It is (...) argued that teachers of the educational foundations disciplines can, via stories, appeal to the opposing tensions and schemata in students’ own minds, and this engagement can be enhanced when students are confronted with broader educational debates, perspectives and proposals. Stories provide abstract concepts with a necessary tension, they suggest a way of entering the theoretical via the concrete and they show students the personal relevance of certain debates, which may have previously appeared remote and obscure. The end result is that students are challenged to make decisions about matters of fundamental importance such as the kinds of teachers they will be and about the ethical commitment they will make to teaching. (shrink)

To the Socratic injunction ‘Know Thyself’ one wonders how to respond. Presumably Socrates is asking us to attempt a project at which we are supposed to have some chance of success and this leads one to ask ‘ Can I know myself?’ One is led to ask it, but the question can seem rhetorical. Many would reply that of course one can do this because there is nothing easier for me to know than my own self. I do, therefore I (...) can. I know it simply by being myself. Not only this, one might regard knowledge of oneself as unavoidable so that the answer to the question ‘Can I know myself?’ is ‘Yes’ and the answer to the question ‘Can I avoid knowing myself?’ is ‘No’. Now if we cannot avoid knowing ourselves, if Socrates is asking us to do somethingwhich we inevitably do anyway, then he has certainly earned his reputation for irony. (shrink)

It is generally acknowledged by proponents of ‘new mechanism’ that mechanistic explanation involves adopting a perspective, but there is less agreement on how we should understand this perspective-taking or what its implications are for practising science. This paper examines the perspectival nature of mechanistic explanation through the lens of the ‘mechanistic stance’, which falls somewhere between Dennett’s more familiar physical and design stance. We argue this approach implies three distinct and significant ways in which mechanistic explanation can be interpreted as (...) perspectival: ‘phenomenon perspectivism’, ‘pattern perspectivism’ and ‘hierarchy perspectivism’. We evaluate the strength of the perspective-dependency implied by each of these, and along the way, discuss their significance for wider debates within the new mechanism literature, such as the nature of function attribution and an ontic vs epistemic understanding of explanation. (shrink)

Background:Ethics rounds are one way to support healthcare personnel in handling ethically difficult situations. A previous study in the present project showed that ethics rounds did not result in significant changes in perceptions of how ethical issues were handled, that is, in the ethical climate. However, there was anecdotal evidence that the ethics rounds were viewed as a positive experience and that they stimulated ethical reflection.Aim:The aim of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of how the ethics rounds (...) were experienced and why the intervention in the form of ethics rounds did not succeed in improving the ethical climate for the staff.Research design:An exploratory and descriptive design with a qualitative approach was adopted, using individual interviews.Participants and research context:A total of 11 healthcare personnel, working in two different psychiatry outpatient clinics and with experience of participating in ethics rounds, were interviewed.Ethical considerations:The study was based on informed consent and was approved by one of the Swedish Regional Ethical Review Boards.Findings:The participants were generally positive about the ethics rounds. They had experienced changes by participating in the ethics rounds in the form of being able to see things from different perspectives as well as by gaining insight into ethical issues. However, these changes had not affected daily work.Discussion:A crucial question is whether or not increased reflection ability among the participants is a good enough outcome of ethics rounds and whether this result could have been measured in patient-related outcomes. Ethics rounds might foster cooperation among the staff and this, in turn, could influence patient care.Conclusion:By listening to others during ethics rounds, a person can learn to see things from a new angle. Participation in ethics rounds can also lead to better insight concerning ethical issues. (shrink)

The free energy principle, an influential framework in computational neuroscience and theoretical neurobiology, starts from the assumption that living systems ensure adaptive exchanges with their environment by minimizing the objective function of variational free energy. Following this premise, it claims to deliver a promising integration of the life sciences. In recent work, Markov blankets, one of the central constructs of the free energy principle, have been applied to resolve debates central to philosophy (such as demarcating the boundaries of the mind). (...) The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we trace the development of Markov blankets starting from their standard application in Bayesian networks, via variational inference, to their use in the literature on active inference. We then identify a persistent confusion in the literature between the formal use of Markov blankets as an epistemic tool for Bayesian inference, and their novel metaphysical use in the free energy framework to demarcate the physical boundary between an agent and its environment. Consequently, we propose to distinguish between “Pearl blankets” to refer to the original epistemic use of Markov blankets and “Friston blankets” to refer to the new metaphysical construct. Second, we use this distinction to critically assess claims resting on the application of Markov blankets to philosophical problems. We suggest that this literature would do well in differentiating between two different research programmes: “inference with a model” and “inference within a model.” Only the latter is capable of doing metaphysical work with Markov blankets, but requires additional philosophical premises and cannot be justified by an appeal to the success of the mathematical framework alone. (shrink)

While we agree in broad strokes with the characterisation of rationalization as a “useful fiction,” we think that Fiery Cushman's claim remains ambiguous in two crucial respects: the reality of beliefs and desires, that is, the fictional status of folk-psychological entities and the degree to which they should be understood as useful. Our aim is to clarify both points and explicate the rationale of rationalization.

This paper demonstrates the ontological status of virtue as an instance of love within the cosmology of St. Maximus the Confessor. It shows that we may posit the real existence of a “virtue” in so far as we understand it to have its basis in, and to be an instance of love. Since God is love and the virtues are logoi, it becomes possible and beneficial to parallel the relationship between love and the virtues with Maximus’ exposition of the Logos (...) and the logoi. In particular, Vladimir Cvetković’s interpretation of the circle and radii analogy will be utilized. It will be shown that when one practices a virtue, one is practicing and participating in love, and, by extension, partaking in God. Within the context of Maximus’ cosmology, this means that practicing virtue and love is the ultimate purpose of humanity in its journey to gather all creation to communion with God. This paper is primarily an exposition of primary sources from St. Maximus, but discussion of the ontology of virtue is made with a view to bringing it into dialogue with modern theories of virtue ethics. This paper arises in part as a response to the August 2013 papers by Andrew Louth and Paul M. Blowers on the need for increased scholarship on Maximus and virtue ethics. (shrink)

There has been much attention devoted in the last decade and especially in the last few years to Maximus the Confessor?s beliefs concerning sexual difference and its removal. The most important text on this topic is Ambiguum 41. There has been mixed reception of this text, with some scholars advocating that Maximus believes that sexual difference was absent from original human nature and will return to such a state in the eschaton; and other scholars believing that this should be read (...) as a metaphorical absence. This article re-evaluates the text in question and argues that the former position should be maintained. It goes some way to bring together current scholarship on the text and to answers questions that arise from the opposing reading. (shrink)

A systematic literature review on evaluation of clinical ethics support services in mental healthcare is presented and discussed. The focus was on (a) forms of clinical ethics support services, (b) evaluation of clinical ethics support services, (c) contexts and participants and (d) results. Five studies were included. The ethics support activities described were moral case deliberations and ethics rounds. Different qualitative and quantitative research methods were utilized. The results show that (a) participants felt that they gained an increased insight into (...) moral issues through systematic reflection; (b) there was improved cooperation among multidisciplinary team members; (c) it was uncertain whether clinical ethics support services led to better patient care; (d) the issue of patient and client participation is complex; and (e) the implementation process is challenging. Clinical ethics support services have mainly been studied through the experiences of the participating facilitators and healthcare professionals. Hence, there is limited knowledge of whether and how various types of clinical ethics support services influence the quality of care and how patients and relatives may evaluate clinical ethics support services. Based on the six excluded ‘grey zone articles’, in which there was an implicit focus on ethics reflection, other ways of working with ethical reflection in practice are discussed. Implementing and evaluating clinical ethics support services as approaches to clinical ethics support that are more integrated into the development of good practice are in focus. In order to meet some of the shortcomings of the field of clinical ethics support services, a research project that aims to strengthen ethics support in the mental health services, including patients’ and caregivers’ views on ethical challenges, is presented. (shrink)

The visual behaviour of consumers buying products in a supermarket was measured and used to analyse the stages of their decision process. Traditionally metrics used to trace decision-making processes are difficult to use in natural environments that often contain many options and unstructured information. Unlike previous attempts in this direction, our methodology reveals differences between a decision-making task and a search task. In particular the second stage of a decision task contains more re-dwells than the second stage of a comparable (...) search task. This study addresses the growing concern of taking eye movement research from the laboratory into the ‘real-world’, so findings can be better generalised to natural situations. (shrink)

Professionals within the mental health services face many ethical dilemmas and challenging situations regarding the use of coercion. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the significance of participating in systematic ethics reflection groups focusing on ethical challenges related to coercion. In 2013 and 2014, 20 focus group interviews with 127 participants were conducted. The interviews were tape recorded and transcribed verbatim. The analysis is inspired by the concept of ‘bricolage’ which means our approach was inductive. Most participants report (...) positive experiences with participating in ethics reflection groups: A systematic and well-structured approach to discuss ethical challenges, increased consciousness of formal and informal coercion, a possibility to challenge problematic concepts, attitudes and practices, improved professional competence and confidence, greater trust within the team, more constructive disagreement and room for internal critique, less judgmental reactions and more reasoned approaches, and identification of potential for improvement and alternative courses of action. On several wards, the participation of psychiatrists and psychologists in the reflection groups was missing. The impact of the perceived lack of safety in reflection groups should not be underestimated. Sometimes the method for ethics reflection was utilised in a rigid way. Direct involvement of patients and family was missing. This focus group study indicates the potential of ethics reflection groups to create a moral space in the workplace that promotes critical, reflective and collaborative moral deliberations. Future research, with other designs and methodologies, is needed to further investigate the impact of ethics reflection groups on improving health care practices. (shrink)

For some time we have seen a shift away from direct marketing, a core feature and dominant exchange form in the alternative food world, towards a greater role for intermediation. Yet, we still need to better understand to what extent and in what ways new mediated Alternative Food Networks represent an evolution of or departure from core tenets of alternative food systems. This paper focuses on AFNs with new intermediaries that connect small-scale producers with urban end-consumers. Based on original research (...) in Frankfurt, Berlin, and Calgary, we analyze three different types of mediated AFNs: one driven by consumers, one by an external intermediary, and one by producers. Our cases include non-capitalist, capitalist, and alternative capitalist economic practices as identified by Gibson-Graham. Conceptually, we base our analysis on the three-pillar-model of alternative agri-food systems, which we further refine. Besides comparing our cases with each other, for heuristic purposes we also compare them with an ideal-type model that adheres to core tenets of alterity in all three pillars. Our empirical analysis shows that intermediary organizations can bring important benefits and that mediated AFNs are in principle able to hold true to the core tenets of alternative agri-food systems. However, it is very important to develop models of democratic control and ownership as well as economic arrangements in which created value is fairly shared. Only then can the potentials of new mediated models be realized while the pitfalls of the conventional systems they seek to replace be avoided. (shrink)

Background:To better understand the kinds of ethical challenges that emerge when using coercion in mental healthcare, and the importance of these ethical challenges, this article presents a systematic review of scientific literature.Methods:A systematic search in the databases MEDLINE, PsychInfo, Cinahl, Sociologicals and Web of Knowledge was carried out. The search terms derived from the population, intervention, comparison/setting and outcome. A total of 22 studies were included.Ethical considerations:The review is conducted according to the Vancouver Protocol.Results:There are few studies that study ethical (...) challenges when using coercion in an explicit way. However, promoting the patient’s best interest is the most important justification for coercion. Patient autonomy is a fundamental challenge facing any use of coercion, and some kind of autonomy infringement is a key aspect of the concept of coercion. The concepts of coercion and autonomy and the relations between them are very complex. When coercion is used, a primary ethical challenge is to assess the balance between promoting good and inflicting harm. In the included studies, findings explicitly related to justice are few. Some studies focus on moral distress experienced by the healthcare professionals using coercion.Conclusion:There is a lack of literature explicitly addressing ethical challenges related to the use of coercion in mental healthcare. It is essential for healthcare personnel to develop a strong awareness of which ethical challenges they face in connection with the use of coercion, as well as challenges related to justice. How to address ethical challenges in ways that prevent illegitimate paternalism and strengthen beneficent treatment and care and trust in connection with the use of coercion is a ‘clinical must’. By developing a more refined and rich language describing ethical challenges, clinicians may be better equipped to prevent coercion and the accompanying moral distress. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to describe nurses' conceptions of decision making with regard to life-sustaining treatment for dialysis patients. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 13 nurses caring for such patients at three hospitals. The interview material was subjected to qualitative content analysis. The nurses saw decision making as being characterized by uncertainty and by lack of communication and collaboration among all concerned. They described different ways of handling decision making, as well as insufficiency of physician—nurse collaboration, lack of (...) confidence in physicians, hindrances to patient participation, and ambivalence about the role of patients' next of kin. Future research should test models for facilitating communication and decision making so that decisions will emerge from collaboration of all concerned. Nurses' role in decision making also needs to be discussed. (shrink)

In this paper we will demonstrate that a computational system can meet the criteria for autonomy laid down by classical enactivism. The two criteria that we will focus on are operational closure and structural determinism, and we will show that both can be applied to a basic example of a physically instantiated Turing machine. We will also address the question of precariousness, and briefly suggest that a precarious Turing machine could be designed. Our aim in this paper is to challenge (...) the assumption that computational systems are necessarily heteronomous systems, to try and motivate in enactivism a more nuanced and less rigid conception of computational systems, and to demonstrate to computational theorists that they might find some interesting material within the enactivist tradition, despite its historical hostility towards computationalism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Shagrir and Sprevak explore the apparent necessity of representation for the individuation of digits in computational systems.1 1 I will first offer a response to Sprevak’s argument that does not mention Shagrir’s original formulation, which was more complex. I then extend my initial response to cover Shagrir’s argument, thus demonstrating that it is possible to individuate digits in non-representational computing mechanisms. I also consider the implications that the non-representational individuation of digits would have for the broader theory of computing (...) mechanisms. 1 The Received View: No Computation without Representation 2 Computing Mechanisms and Functional Individuation 3 Against Computational Externalism 4 Implications for the Mechanistic Account. (shrink)

In recent years, the attention on the use of coercion in mental health care has increased. The use of coercion is common and controversial, and involves many complex ethical challenges. The research question in this study was: What kind of ethical challenges related to the use of coercion do health care practitioners face in their daily clinical work?

Recently, some authors have begun to raise questions about the potential unity of 4E (enactive, embedded, embodied, extended) cognition as a distinct research programme within cognitive science. Two tensions, in particular, have been raised:(i) that the body-centric claims embodied cognition militate against the distributed tendencies of extended cognition and (ii) that the body/environment distinction emphasized by enactivism stands in tension with the world-spanning claims of extended cognition. The goal of this paper is to resolve tensions (i) and (ii). The proposal (...) is that a form of ‘wide computationalism’can be used to reconcile the two tensions and, in so doing, articulate a common theoretical core for 4E cognition. (shrink)

The proposal that probabilistic inference and unconscious hypothesis testing are central to information processing in the brain has been steadily gaining ground in cognitive neuroscience and associated fields. One popular version of this proposal is the new theoretical framework of predictive processing or prediction error minimization, which couples unconscious hypothesis testing with the idea of ‘active inference’ and claims to offer a unified account of perception and action. Here we will consider one outstanding issue that still looms large at the (...) core of the PEM framework: the lack of a clear criterion for distinguishing conscious states from unconscious ones. In order to fulfill the promise of becoming a unifying framework for describing and modeling cognition, PEM needs to be able to differentiate between conscious and unconscious mental states or processes. We will argue that one currently popular view, that the contents of conscious experience are determined by the ‘winning hypothesis’, falls short of fully accounting for conscious experience. It ignores the possibility that some states of a system can control that system’s behavior even though they are apparently not conscious. What follows from this is that the ‘winning hypothesis’ view does not provide a complete account of the difference between conscious and unconscious states in the probabilistic brain. We show how this problem for the received view can be resolved by augmenting PEM with Daniel Dennett’s multiple drafts model of consciousness. This move is warranted by the similar roles that attention and internal competition play in both the PEM framework and the multiple drafts model. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to begin developing a version of Gualtiero Piccinini’s mechanistic account of computation that does not need to appeal to any notion of proper functions. The motivation for doing so is a general concern about the role played by proper functions in Piccinini’s account, which will be evaluated in the first part of the paper. I will then propose a potential alternative approach, where computing mechanisms are understood in terms of Carl Craver’s perspectival account of (...) mechanistic functions. According to this approach, the mechanistic function of ‘performing a computation’ can only be attributed relative to an explanatory perspective, but such attributions are nonetheless constrained by the underlying physical structure of the system in question, thus avoiding unlimited pancomputationalism. If successful, this approach would carry with it fewer controversial assumptions than Piccinini’s original account, which requires a robust understanding of proper functions. Insofar as there are outstanding concerns about the status of proper functions, this approach would therefore be more generally acceptable. (shrink)

The 35 commentaries cover a wide range of topics and take many different stances on the issues explored by the target article. We have organised our response to the commentaries around three central questions: Are Friston blankets just Pearl blankets? What ontological and metaphysical commitments are implied by the use of Friston blankets? What kind of explanatory work are Friston blankets capable of? We conclude our reply with a short critical reflection on the indiscriminate use of both Markov blankets and (...) the free energy principle. (shrink)

In the debate around ecological democracy, a pivotal point of contention has long been the question why democracy should actually be expected, as some claim, to deliver (more) ecological outcomes. This point is empirical as well as conceptual: it is difficult to conceive why voters would support any policies that - as is often (perceived to be) the case with environmental legislation - would leave them worse off; whilst democracy conceptually must remain open to all outcomes rather than being tied (...) to any particular agenda ex ante. Yet both empirically and conceptually, the nature and extent of this key puzzle has always hinged on the particular definitions used. This paper reconsiders the link between democracy and ecological sustainability from a cultural angle: I argue that conceiving of both sustainability and democratisation as essentially cultural transformations resolves the puzzle and thus makes a renewed case for ecological democracy. Only as cultural processes - the creation of new meanings of sustainable prosperity in people's everyday lives, and a culturally rather than institutionally based form of democratisation - can these transformations be deep-seated rather than superficial, and thus self-perpetuating rather than merely enforced. (shrink)

Embodied cognitive theories predict that linguistic conceptual representations are grounded and continually represented in real world, sensorimotor experiences. However, there is an on-going debate on whether this also holds for abstract concepts. Grammar is the archetype of abstract knowledge, and therefore constitutes a test case against embodied theories of language representation. Former studies have largely focussed on lexical-level embodied representations. In the present study we take the grounding-by-modality idea a step further by using reaction time (RT) data from the linguistic (...) processing of nominal classifiers in Chinese. We take advantage of an independent body of research, which shows that attention in hand space is biased. Specifically, objects near the hand consistently yield shorter RTs as a function of readiness for action on graspable objects within reaching space, and the same biased attention inhibits attentional disengagement. We predicted that this attention bias would equally apply to the graspable object classifier but not to the big object classifier. Chinese speakers (N = 22) judged grammatical congruency of classifier-noun combinations in two conditions: graspable object classifier and big object classifier. We found that RTs for the graspable object classifier were significantly faster in congruent combinations, and significantly slower in incongruent combinations, than the big object classifier. There was no main effect on grammatical violations, but rather an interaction effect of classifier type. Thus, we demonstrate here grammatical category- specific effects pertaining to the semantic content and by extension the visual and tactile modality of acquisition underlying the acquisition of these categories. We conclude that abstract grammatical categories are subjected to the same mechanisms as general cognitive and neurophysiological processes and may therefore be grounded. (shrink)

Structuralism about mathematical objects and structuralist accounts of physical computation both face indeterminacy objections. For the former, the problem arises for cases such as the complex roots i and \, for which a automorphism can be defined, thus establishing the structural identity of these importantly distinct mathematical objects. In the case of the latter, the problem arises for logical duals such as AND and OR, which have invertible structural profiles :369–400, 2001). This makes their physical implementations indeterminate, in the sense (...) that their structural profiles alone cannot establish whether a given physical component is an AND-gate or an OR-gate. Doherty has recently shown both problems to be analogous, and has argued that computational structuralism is threatened with the absurd conclusion that computational digits might be indiscernible, such that, if structural properties are all that we have to go on, the binary digit 0 must be treated as identical to the binary digit 1. However, we think that a solution to the indiscernibility problem for mathematical structuralists, drawing on the work of David Hilbert, can be adapted for the analogous problem in the computational case, thereby rescuing the structuralist approach to physical computation. (shrink)

In this article we explore a notion of relationship which exists between humans. This notion of relationship takes as a point of departure that differences in human relations and interaction have to be safeguarded. Starting with the Irigarayan notion of ‘two’ as a gendered difference, opposed to an understanding of humans as one and same (gender), we elaborate an understanding of otherness which opens a space where both self and other are welcomed. This relational space cannot be appropriated by either (...) one for it to exist. We continue by drawing from Harry G. Frankfurt's discussion of care in order to understand human (inter)actions in this space. Through an elaboration of how love as a special form of care represents a motivational drive, a way in which a person's will is formed, we try to show how this attentiveness towards the other is possible. Our point of departure is two statements by female head teachers that prompted these theoretical inquiries into other possibilities for interpreting human (inter)action in leadership in education. (shrink)

This paper spells out the attention schema theory of consciousness in terms of the predictive processing framework. As it stands, the attention schema theory lacks a plausible computational formalization that could be used for developing possible mechanistic models of how it is realized in the brain. The predictive processing framework, on the other hand, fails to provide a plausible explanation of the subjective quality or the phenomenal aspect of conscious experience. The aim of this work is to apply the formal (...) tools of predictive processing to outline a possible model of cognition that details a plausible way in which organisms may acquire or construct the kinds of schemas postulated by the attention schema theory. This is done in terms of Bayesian control models, which tend to favour representing information in a frugal or 'sparse' manner that strips away detail in precisely the way that the attention schema requires. Once integrated, these two accounts can offer a plausible explanation of the supposedly irreducible and mysterious 'feel' of conscious experience, in terms of the frugal manner in which perceptual mechanisms are represented by the attention schema. (shrink)

Hobson & Friston (2014) outline a synthesis of Hobson's work on dreaming and consciousness with Friston’s work on the free energy principle and predictive coding. Whilst we are sympathetic with their claims about the function of dreaming and its relationship to consciousness, we argue that their endorsement of the Cartesian theatre metaphor is neither necessary nor desirable. Furthermore, if it were necessary then this endorsement would undermine their positive claims, as the Cartesian theatre metaphor is widely regarded as unsustainable. We (...) demonstrate this point and then develop an alternative formulation of their position that does not require the Cartesian theatre metaphor. Our positive goal is to clarify Hobson & Friston’s confusing usage of philosophical terminology, replacing it where possible with the more transparent language of the forward models framework. This will require some modifications to their account, which as it stands is philosophically and empirically unsustainable. (shrink)

. A space for ‘who’ – a culture of ‘two’: speculations related to an ‘in-between knowledge’. Ethics and Education: Vol. 7, Creating spaces, pp. 251-260. doi: 10.1080/17449642.2013.767084.

The ideal of trust pervades nursing. This article uses empirical material from acute psychiatry that reveals that it is distrust rather than trust that is prevalent in this field. Our data analyses show how distrust is expressed in the therapeutic environment and in the relationship between nurse and patient. We point out how trust can nonetheless be created in an environment that is characterized by distrust. Both trust and distrust are exposed as `fragile' phenomena that can easily `tip over' towards (...) their opposites. Trust is not something that nurses possess or are given; it is rather something that they earn and have to work hard to achieve. Regarding themselves as potential causes of distrust and active wielders of power can contribute to nurses developing a more realistic view of their practice. Assuming a realistic middle-way perspective can help to manoeuvre between the extremities of excellence and resignation, which in turn can lead to processes that create trust between psychotic patients and nurses. (shrink)

During the past decade, since the publication of Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games,1 dystopian fiction for young adults has become an important contemporary genre.2 Like its adult counterpart, YA dystopian literature often engages with contemporary, global matters, including environmental destruction, societal inequality and segregation, and exploitation of the weak.3 Furthermore, many recent YA dystopias have featured strong female protagonists.4 These tenets are reflected in the two dystopian YA novels Exodus and Zenith,5 written by Scottish award-winning author of novels for children (...) and young adults Julie Bertagna, that are the subject of this article. Of particular pertinence is the novels'... (shrink)

Informed consent represents a cornerstone of the endeavours to make health care research ethically acceptable. Based on experience of qualitative research on power dynamics in nursing care in acute psychiatry, we show that the requirement for informed consent may be practised in formalistic ways that legitimize the researcher's activities without taking the patient's changing perception of the situation sufficiently into account. The presentation of three patient case studies illustrates a diversity of issues that the researcher must consider in each situation. (...) We argue for the necessity of researchers to base their judgement on a complex set of competencies. Consciousness of research ethics must be combined with knowledge of the challenges involved in research methodology in qualitative research and familiarity with the therapeutic arena in which the research is being conducted. The article shows that the alternative solution is not simple but must emphasize the researcher's ability to doubt and be based on an awareness of the researcher's fallibility. (shrink)

Re-Imagining Relationships in Education re-imagines relationships in contemporary education by bringing state-of-the-art theoretical and philosophical insights to bear on current teaching practices. Introduces theories based on various philosophical approaches into the realm of student teacher relationships Opens up innovative ways to think about teaching and new kinds of questions that can be raised Features a broad range of philosophical approaches that include Arendt, Beckett, Irigaray and Wollstonecraft to name but a few Includes contributors from Norway, England, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, (...) and the U.S. (shrink)

With the rising of the reported cases of COVID-19 and home quarantine being implemented, the Internet became a channel for effective human interaction. Doing most of the work online brought an increasing number of online fraudsters to exploit the public fear of the pandemic to attack people through cybercrime. This paper introduces what cybersecurity is all about. It also lists some of the cybersecurity issues that are being faced at this time. Further, it discusses forms of attacks being encountered and (...) lists recommendations on how to be safe online. (shrink)