In addiction, apparently causally significant phenomena occur at a huge number of levels; addiction is affected by biomedical, neurological, pharmacological, clinical, social, and politico-legal factors, among many others. In such a complex, multifaceted field of inquiry, it seems very unlikely that all the many layers of explanation will prove amenable to any simple or straightforward, reductive analysis; if we are to unify the many different sciences of addiction while respecting their causal autonomy, then, what we are likely to need is (...) an integrative framework. In this paper, we propose the theory of “Externalist” or “4E” – for extended, embodied, embedded, and enactive – cognition, which focuses on the empirical and conceptual centrality of the wider extra-neural environment to cognitive and mental processes, as a candidate for such a framework. We begin in Section 2 by outlining how such a perspective might apply to psychiatry more generally, before turning to some of the ways it can illuminate addiction in particular: Section 3 points to a way of dissolving the classic dichotomy between the “choice model” and “disease model” in the addiction literature; Section 4 shows how 4E concepts can clarify the interplay between the addict’s brain and her environment; and Section 5 considers how these insights help to explain the success of some recovery strategies, and may help to inform the development of new ones. (shrink)

What is morality? How many moral values are there? And what are they? According to the theory of morality-as-cooperation, morality is a collection of biological and cultural solutions to the problems of cooperation recurrent in human social life. This theory predicts that there will be as many different types of morality as there are different types of cooperation. Previous research, drawing on evolutionary game theory, has identified at least seven different types of cooperation, and used them to explain seven different (...) types of morality: family values, group loyalty, reciprocity, heroism, deference, fairness and property rights. Here we explore the conjecture that these simple moral ‘elements’ combine to form a much larger number of more complex moral ‘molecules’, and that as such morality is a combinatorial system. For each combination of two elements, we hypothesise a candidate moral molecule, and successfully locate an example of it in the professional and popular literature. These molecules include: fraternity, blood revenge, family pride, filial piety, gavelkind, primogeniture, friendship, patriotism, tribute, diplomacy, common ownership, honour, confession, turn taking, restitution, modesty, mercy, munificence, arbitration, mendicancy, and queuing. These findings indicate that morality – like many other physical, biological, psychological and cultural systems – is indeed a combinatorial system. Thus morality-as-cooperation provides a principled and powerful theory, that explains why there are many moral values, and successfully predicts what they will be; and it generates a systematic framework that has the potential to explain all moral ideas, possible and actual. Pursuing the many implications of this theory will help to place the study of morality on a more secure scientific footing. (shrink)

In this paper I offer an argument against one important version of panentheism, that is, mereological panentheism. Although panentheism has proven difficult to define, I provide a working definition of the view, and proceed to argue that given this way of thinking about the doctrine, mereological accounts of panentheism have serious theological drawbacks. I then explore some of these theological drawbacks. In a concluding section I give some reasons for thinking that the classical theistic alternative to panentheism is preferable, all (...) things considered. (shrink)

This book is a critical introduction to contemporary French philosopher Jacques Rancière. It is the first introduction in any language to cover all of his major work and offers an accessible presentation and searching evaluation of his significant contributions to the fields of politics, pedagogy, history, literature, film theory and aesthetics. This book traces the emergence of Rancière’s thought over the last forty-five years and situates it in the diverse intellectual contexts in which it intervenes. Beginning with his egalitarian critique (...) of his former teacher Louis Althusser, the book tracks the subsequent elaboration of Rancière’s highly original conception of equality. This approach reveals that a grasp of his early archival and historiographical work is vital for a full understanding both of his later politics and his ongoing investigation of art and aesthetics. Along the way, this book explains and analyses key terms in Rancière’s very distinctive philosophical lexicon, including the ‘police’ order, ‘disagreement’, ‘political subjectivation’, ‘literarity’, the ‘part which has no part’, the ‘regimes of art’ and ‘the distribution of the sensory’. This book argues that Rancière’s work sets a new standard in contestatory critique and concludes by reflecting on the philosophical and policy implications of his singular project. (shrink)

We prove that if μ is a regular cardinal and ℙ is a μ-centered forcing poset, then ℙ forces that $(I[\mu ^{ + + } ])^V $ generates I[µ⁺⁺] modulo clubs. Using this result, we construct models in which the approachability property fails at the successor of a singular cardinal. We also construct models in which the properties of being internally club and internally approachable are distinct for sets of size the successor of a singular cardinal.

Orthodox neurocognitive accounts of the bodily sense of agency suggest that the experience of agency arises when action-effects are anticipated accurately. In this paper, I argue that while successful anticipation is crucial for the sense of agency, the role of unsuccessful prediction has been neglected, and that inefficacy and uncertainty are no less central to the sense of agency. I will argue that this is reflected in the phenomenology of agency, which can be characterized both as the experience of efficacy (...) and effort. Specifically, the “sense of efficacy” refers to the perceptual experience of an action unfolding as anticipated. The “sense of effort”, in contrast, arises when an action has an uncertain trajectory, feels difficult, and demands the exertion of control. In this case, actions do not unfold as anticipated and require continuing adaptation if they are to be efficacious. I propose that, taken individually, the experience of efficacy and effort are insufficient for the sense of agency and that these experiences can even disrupt the sense of agency when they occur in isolation from each other. I further argue that a fully-fledged sense of agency depends on the temporally extensive process of prediction error-cancelation. This way, a comparator account can accommodate both the role of accurate prediction and prediction error and thus efficacy and effort. (shrink)

Negative theology or apophasis - the idea that God is best identified in terms of 'absence', 'otherness', 'difference' - has been influential in modern Christian thought, resonating as it does with secular notions of negation developed in continental philosophy. Apophasis also has a strong intellectual history dating back to the early Church Fathers. Silence and the Word both studies the history of apophasis and examines its relationship with contemporary secular philosophy. Leading Christian thinkers explore in their own way the extent (...) to which the concept of the apophatic illumines some of the deepest doctrinal structures of Christian faith, and of Christian self-understanding both in terms of its historical and contemporary situatedness, showing how a dimension of negativity has characterised not only traditional mysticism but most forms of Christian thought over the years. (shrink)

The atonement is one of the central and defining doctrines of Christian theology. Yet the nature of the atonement – how it is that Christ's life and death on the cross actually atone for human sin – remains a theological conundrum. This article offers a new argument for an old theory of the atonement, namely, penal substitution. First, it sets out the theological context for the argument. This involves giving some account of alternative theories of the atonement in the tradition, (...) and why penal substitution might be thought a particularly appealing way of thinking about the atonement. The article then presents an argument for a version of penal substitution that involves the application of an idea found in some Augustinian accounts of the transmission of sin from Adam to his progeny. At the end of this exposition, it offers some brief comments on the metaphysics undergirding the theology of this argument. The final section discusses several theological and philosophical objections to this reasoning. (shrink)

Reformed theology is often thought to be antipathetic to virtue theory. However, Jonathan Edwards is a counterexample to this way of thinking. In this article, I offer an account of Edwards’s moral thought as a case study of Reformed theology that is also a species of virtue theory, focusing on what he says about the formation of character. I argue that key doctrinal commitments drive his moral theology, and generate some interesting problems for his ethics. Although his work is not (...) without shortcomings, Edwards is a thinker whose moral theology might be usefully repaired and retrieved by contemporary theologians in the Reformed tradition for whom ‘duties are founded on doctrines’. (shrink)

Reciprocal altruism involves foregoing an immediate benefit for the sake of a greater long-term reward. It follows that individuals who exhibit a stronger preference for future over immediate rewards should be more disposed to engage in reciprocal altruism – in other words, ‘patient’ people should be more cooperative. The present study tested this prediction by investigating whether participants’ contributions in a public-good game correlated with their ‘discount rate’. The hypothesis was supported: patient people are indeed more cooperative. The paper discusses (...) alternative interpretations of this result, and makes some suggestions for future research. (shrink)

We elaborate on Glowacki's claim that humans are more capable of establishing peace than other mammals. We present three aspects suggesting caution. First, the social capabilities of nonhuman primates should not be underestimated. Second, the effect of these capabilities on peace establishment is nonmonotonous. Third, defining peace by human-centered values introduces a fallacy.

The COVID-19 pandemic plunged economies into recessions and advancements in artificial intelligence create widespread automation of job tasks. A debate around how to address these challenges has moved the introduction of a universal basic income (UBI) center stage. However, existing UBI research mainly focuses on economic aspects and normative arguments but lacks an individual perspective that goes beyond examining the association between socio-demographic characteristics and UBI support. We add to this literature by investigating not only socio-demographic but also psychological predictors (...) of UBI acceptance in a multivariate analysis using a representative sample of the German working population collected in 2020 (N = 1986). Our results indicate that being more supportive of a UBI went along with being comparably younger, of East-German origin, and more in favor of equal living standards, as well as perceiving one’s economic situation to be worse and the threat of the corona-pandemic to be higher. (shrink)

In several recent articles and a monograph, Andrew Loke has outlined a particular model of the Incarnation, which he calls the Divine Preconscious Model. In this article I provide a critique of this model, drawing on recent work by James Arcadi in order to show that there are serious theological costs involved in adopting the DPM.

_Skepticism and Cognitivism_ addresses the fundamental question of epistemology: Is knowledge possible? It approaches this query with an evaluation of the skeptical tradition in Western philosophy, analyzing thinkers who have claimed that we can know nothing. After an introductory chapter lays out the central issues, chapter 2 focuses on the classical skeptics of the Academic and Pyrrhonistic schools and then on the skepticism of David Hume. Chapters 3 through 5 are devoted to contemporary defenders of skepticism—Keith Lehrer, Arne Næss, and (...) Peter Unger. In chapter 6, author Oliver A. Johnson dons the mantle of skeptic himself and develops and adds theories to the skeptical arsenal. He closes with an examination of the relationship between skepticism and cognitivism, reaching and defending conclusions on the nature and extent of possible human knowledge. (shrink)

This article considers several problems concerning the origin of the soul in the work of the nineteenth century American theologian, William G. T. Shedd. He opts for the traducian position, which is, that the soul is passed down from parents to child, in a way similar to the passing of physical seed from two human parents that fuse in syngamy to form a genetically distinct entity. The essay considers three problems with this view. The first concerns the composition of human (...) natures; the second, whether souls are fissiparous; and the third, the relationship between traducianism, creationism and Augustinian realism. (shrink)

We discuss and expand Boyer's idea of ownership coordination. Interpersonal similarity, we suggest, can moderate the attainment of coordination: Perceived similarity predicts coordination costs, whereas actual similarity dictates coordination success and the severity of illusory assumptions regarding a shared understanding of ownership. The example of similarity highlights the complexity of the social projection process uncritically assumed behind ownership coordination.

In “The Book of the Crown (_Kitāb al-Iklīl_) of pseudo-Rhazes” Oliver Kahl and Henrietta Sharp Cockrell offer a facsimile edition, with annotated English translation and introductory study, of a unique and highly unusual medieval Arabic medical text.

We consider an underdeveloped feature of De Neys's model. Decisions with multiple intuitions per option are neither trivial to explain nor rare. These decision scenarios are crucial for an assessment of the model's generalizability and adequacy. Besides monitoring absolute differences in intuition strength, the mind might add the strengths of intuitions per choice option, leading to competing and testable hypotheses.

We extend Ivancovsky et al.'s finding on the association between curiosity and creativity by proposing a sequential causal model assuming that (a) curiosity determines the motivation to seek information and that (b) creativity constitutes a capacity to act on that motivation. This framework assumes that both high levels of curiosity and creativity are necessary for information-seeking behavior.