Recently David Best has advanced the claim that sport is not an art form, and that although sport may be aesthetic, it is not artistic. Such a claim is false and runs counter to ordinary usage and sport practice. On behalf of sport practice, let me cite as an example the world-class Canadian skater, Toller Cranston, who thinks there are such things as ‘artistic sports, those being gymnastics, diving, figure skating’. Best claims that athletes like Cranston are conceptually confused and (...) that they endow sport with greater respectability than should be allowed. Ascribing the predicate ‘artistic’ to sport performances reflects ‘barbarous usage’. Why does Best exclude the artistic from the realm of sport? Upon examination of his argument, one finds that this exclusion derives mainly from his concepts of art and sport. He thinks that art has a subject-matter, a content, and that sport does not. Sport is contentless, so ‘sport’ and ‘art’ are two logically distinct regions. But is this so? Are we to accept Best's argument or are we to listen to accomplished, reflective athletes in the area of artistic sports? It seems the most reasonable analytic procedure would be to listen to Cranston's case and decide whether such a piece of intentionalist criticism5 should override Best's premises. (shrink)

We report a unique, collaborative effort by users and providers of genetic services to arrive at outlines for optimal ethics and clinical practice. Using focus groups of consumers and providers , a provider-consumer project team developed 1) a consumer wish list, 2) an experientially based ethical overview of situations arising in practice, and 3) detailed suggestions for consumer-provider interactions in clinical settings. Consumers were primarily interested in accurate information, respect for persons, a smoothly functioning team, with the consumer as an (...) equal member of the team, family integrity, and providers who knew the limits of their knowledge and were willing to refer. “Non-directive” counselling and privacy were not major issues in consumer focus groups; some thought providers should openly state their own opinions. Providers had a rather different list of priorities.Books and papers on clinical ethics usually originate from bioethicists and physicians. This pilot project is unique in including consumers and providers equally. (shrink)

The problem of methodological pluralism in psychology is addressed. The dominant paradigm, in which experimental methods are assigned top priority and quantification is preferred over qualitative methods, is no longer tenable in light of criticisms by philosophers of science and psychologists. The emergence of a panoply of alternative methods is reviewed and the problems of constructionism, eclecticism, and fragmentation are delineated. Solutions based on an indigenous epistemological foundation for psychology are sought in Continental philosophy. The commensurability of experimental, psychoanalytic, and (...) phenomenological psychologies is explored in an effort to secure unity among diverse methods. Educational requirements for a new kind of scientific research in the twenty-first century are discussed. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Describing a cognitive system at a mechanistic level requires an engineering task analysis. This involves identifying the task and developing models of possible solutions. Evolutionary psychology and Bayesian modeling make complimentary contributions: Evolutionary psychology suggests the types of tasks that human brains were designed to solve, while Bayesian modeling provides a rigorous description of possible computational solutions to such problems.

Recent work with infants suggests that plant foraging throughout evolutionary history has shaped the design of the human mind. Infants in Germany and the US avoid touching plants and engage in more social looking toward adults before touching them. This combination of behavioral avoidance and social looking strategies enables safe and rapid social learning about plant properties within the first two years of life. Here, we explore how growing up in a context that requires frequent interaction with plants shapes children’s (...) responses with the participation of communities in rural Fiji. We conducted two interviews with adults and a behavioral study with children. The adult interviews map the plant learning landscape in these communities and provide context for the child study. The child study used a time-to-touch paradigm to examine whether 6- to 48-month-olds in participating communities exhibit avoidance behaviors and social looking patterns that are similar to, or different from, those of German and American infants. Our adult interview results confirmed that knowledge about daily and medicinal uses of plants is widely known throughout the communities, and children are given many opportunities to informally learn about plants. The results of the child behavioral study suggest that young Fijian children, like German and American infants, are reluctant to reach for novel artificial plants and are fastest to interact with familiar household items and shells. In contrast to German and American infants, Fijian children also quickly reached for familiar real plants and did not engage in differential social looking before touching them. These results suggest that cultural contexts flexibly shape the development of plant-relevant cognitive design. (shrink)

This article reflects on the implications of the concept of health and the questions it poses for moral philosophy, psychology, and the panoply of professions that are involved in the practices of care and in the ethics of individual rights, dignity, and autonomy. Significant among these questions is what we call “the predicament of agency.” The predicament involves the ethical tensions—arising within the broad concept of health and flourishing, but also in concrete everyday practices and relationships—between supporting individual health outcomes (...) and supporting health and flourishing through respect for autonomy and self-direction. Three ways of addressing the predicament of agency are discussed: by reinterpreting the nature and requirements of autonomy (a) by appeal to reason, (b) by designing or curating contextual conditions influencing choice (often called “choice architecture” or “nudging”) in ways that constrain autonomy but do not violate its core value, and (c) by appeal to relational judgment and reflective professional practice. The article argues that each of these lines of thought is important, but none is a panacea, and none is free from conceptual confusions and ethical pitfalls of its own. The relational approach is the most promising in pointing beyond the predicament of agency—not so much by resolving it as by showing how it can be worked through without either turning our back on caring or turning caring into management and manipulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.2 (2003) 73-79 [Access article in PDF] Does Film Weaken Spectator Consciousness? R.D. Boyd and S.K. Wertz The role of spectator is crucial for an actor, for there are "no actors without spectators." 1 At times the success of the actor depends upon the role taken by the spectator. Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" depends upon an active,creative, involved audience. Other artists expect their (...) audience to be passive,almost unconscious. Whether the medium of creativity is film or the printedpage, examples of both dependencies abound. The focus of this essay is ona classic piece in the literature about film. In the Theory of Film, Siegfried Kracauer provides us with a mesmerizing printed discussion of film. 2 In this essay we wish to examine his reasoning that is in a self-contained argument by analogy. Since Kracauer does not use or mention the argument thereafter, we feel that we can isolate the argument from its context and deal with it as it stands. After an extended analysis of the argument, we will relate some of the points to the literature on film. The following analogical argument is our focus. Films...tend to weaken the spectator's consciousness. Its withdrawal from the scene may be furthered by the darkness in moviehouses. Darkness automatically reduces our contacts with actuality, depriving us of many environmental data needed for adequate judgments and other mental activities. It lulls the mind....Devotees of film and its opponents alike have compared the medium to a sort of drug and have drawn attention to its stupefying effects....Doping creates dope addicts. It would seem a sound proposition that the cinema has its habitues who frequent it out of an all but physiological urge. They are not prompted by a desire to look at a specific film or to be pleasantly entertained; what they really crave is for once to be released from the grip of consciousness, lose their identity in the dark, and let sink in, [End Page 73] with their senses ready to absorb them, the images as they happen to follow each other on the screen. 3To support his main point, "Films...tend to weaken the spectator's consciousness," Kracauer develops three intermediate arguments (IA's), which support his major argument (MA). If each sentence in the above passage were numbered one through nine, with the last full sentence being broken into two sentences at the semicolon, the following schema emerges. In English the chain of reasoning is: IA-1 Some habitues of film are not prompted by a desire to look at a specific film or to be pleasantly entertained. What they really crave is release fromthe grip of consciousness, to lose their identity in the dark, and let sink in, with their senses ready to absorb them, the images as they happen to follow each other on the screen. Therefore, the cinema has its habitues who frequent it out of an all but physiological urge.IA-2 Some habitues of film frequent it out of an all but physiological urge. Doping creates dope addicts. Therefore, devotees of film and its opponents alike have compared the medium to a sort of drug and have drawn attention to its stupefying effects.IA-3 Darkness automatically reduces our contacts with actuality, depriving us of many environmental data needed for adequate judgments and other mental activities. Darkness lulls the mind. Therefore, consciousness withdrawal from the scene may be furthered by the darkness in moviehouses.MA Devotees of film and its opponents alike have compared the medium to a sort of drug and have drawn attention to its stupefying effects. Consciousness withdrawal from the scene may be furthered by the darkness in moviehouses. Therefore, films...tend to weaken the spectator's consciousness. The above chain of arguments influences us, the spectators, to embrace his main point. However, before we are lulled into accepting his reasoning, it will be helpful to examine and evaluate each link. [End Page 74]IA-1 Some habitues of film are not prompted by a desire to... (shrink)

Husserl focused perhaps more than any other philosopher on the relationship between philosophy and psychology. This problem was important to him because the European project of universal science must include sciences of consciousness that address questions of meaning, value and purpose so crucial for humanity. This paper provides a sketch of the later Husserl’s thinking on this issue in order to clarify the relationships among transcendental philosophy as the mother of the sciences, psychology as the foundational mental science, and the (...) various regional sciences of persons. Radicalizing and extending the transcendental tradition to free philosophy from naturalism, Husserl developed methods and fundamental concepts for understanding consciousness in its distinctive world constituting function. In parallel fashion, Husserl traced the historical failures of psychology to its naturalistic philosophy, from which he liberated the discipline by means of phenomenological reflections on the intentional property of its subject matter. This pure focus on mental processes resulted in the clarification of the transcendental phenomenological foundation of psychology as well as a recognition of the paradoxical manner in which psychological processes are both world constituting and mundanely present in the lives of persons. The apperceptive synthesis of transcendental consciousness and mundane embodiment in the identification of the person is proposed as essential for a non-naturalistic, intentional psychology, which provides appropriate concepts and the method of intentional analysis for such sciences of persons as sociology, history, literary studies, and religious studies. The problems, means, and inevitable inadequacies of communicating transcendental insights in language are discussed. Analysis of the complexity of living persons discloses their transcendental dimension in the manifolds their mundane activities and in their products, including use, cultural, and art objects as well as social institutions. Attention is drawn to resources in phenomenology beyond Husserl and in the genuine psychological intuitions of non-phenomenologists for generating non-naturalistic, phenomenologically grounded person sciences. (shrink)

Moral and social arguments weigh heavily against performing medical procedures solely for purposes of sex selection. The medical profession has a responsibility to abandon its posture of ethical neutrality and take a firm stand now against sex selection.

In verse twelve of the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu makes a curious claim about the five flavors; namely that they cause people not to taste or that they jade the palate. The five flavors are: sweet, sour, salt, bitter and spicy or hot as in 'heat'. To the Western mind, the claim, 'The five flavors cause them [persons] to not taste,' is counterintuitive; on the contrary, the presence of the five flavors in a dish or in a meal would (...) expand or enhance the senses and the palate, i.e., taste would be augmented by the five flavors. So what is the plausible meaning of the Taoistic claim? To answer this question, I look very briefly at the history of the doctrine of the five flavors and the history of Chinese cuisine. Lao Tzu probably has Confucian feasts in mind in making such a claim, but other interpretations are discussed. (shrink)

This essay is basically divided into two parts. The first deals with the similarities between reductio ad absurdum arguments and slippery slope arguments. The chief example comes from Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, which advances an argument for the necessity of government for humane living. The second addresses some pedagogical concerns centered around another pair of arguments: the argument by complete enumeration and the argument by inductive generalization. The illustration for this pair comes from the arts. I finish with a suggestion that (...) pairs like the above can be as effectively used in shorter, non-regular critical reasoning or introductory logic courses as those in mid-term or summer courses. Such pairing can demonstrate a good use of mixing and matching deductive and non-deductive arguments in teaching logic. (shrink)

The ArgumentA survey of 2901 genetics professionals in 36 nations suggests that eugenic thought underlies their perceptions of the goals of genetics and that directiveness in counseling after prenatal diagnosis leads to individual decisions based on pessimistically biaed information, especially in developing nations of Asia and Eastern Europe. The “non-directive counseling” found in English-speaking nations is an aberration from the rest of the world. Most geneticists, except in China, rejected government involvement in premarital testing or sterilization, but most also held (...) a pessimistic view of persons with genetic disabilities. Individual, but not state-coerced, eugenics survives in much modern genetic practice. (shrink)

The oriental martial arts tend to be viewed as having deep, mysterious significance and secret, occult practices. An adept in a martial art is supposed to be not only an expert in combat but also a spiritual master, worthy of assuming a religious status for his students. Much of what is written under the name of "philosophy of the martial arts" emphasizes these characteristics, and makes claims about the results of martial arts training that may well perplex an outsider. We (...) propose to examine three of these claims in such a way that they become intelligible, and are put in terms compatible with the Western philosophical tradition. The task that we set ourselves, then, is not so much to assess the truth of these claims, as to determine and to explain what claims are being made, and what their justifications might be. We seek to show that, although some of the experiences that a person in the martial arts may have may be esoteric, the comprehension of claims made about these experiences need not be. We shall, thus, try to make a start at bringing what is called the philosophy of the martial arts out of a close connection with near mystic insight into a more public domain in which philosophical issues in the martial arts can be discussed in a way compatible with Western philosophy. (shrink)

The convergences in approach between Freud's psychoanalysis and Husserl's phenomenology are elaborated. These include philosophical roots in Brentano's teachings; the primacy of direct observation over construction and theory; a conviction about the irreducibility of mentality to nature; the project of a "pure" psychology; the bracketing of theories, preconceptions, and the natural attitude; the necessity of self-reflection and empathy; a relational theory of meaning; receptivity to human subjects as teachers; and the methodological value of fiction for scientific truth. It is argued (...) that divergences between psychoanalytic and phenomenological theory have obscured profound agreement in the approach, subject matter, and methods of these two schools of psychology. (shrink)

Reviews the general orientation of cognitive psychology, some contemporary difficulties and problems noted by cognitive psychologists, and apparent commonalities between phenomenological and cognitive psychologies. It is argued that the problems of cognitive psychology are inevitable consequences of its natural scientific orientation, which is far more traditional than it is revolutionary. A phenomenologically based, human science approach to psychology is offered as a solution of fundamental disciplinary problems. 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

The perception created by the combination of olfaction and taste is called flavor.What is the number of tastes or flavors we have? Is it five, as most Chinese believe? None, as the ancient Taoists asserted? Four, as Western science traditionally claims? Or is it six or seven or even fourteen? World cuisines are at odds on this issue, and I shall briefly explore here their reasons for their numbers. There is a consensus among some of the elements that tells us (...) something about the human makeup or constitution. The other elements reveal social and cultural differences and varying environmental conditions.The doctrine of the five flavors dates to the Xia Dynasty (c. twenty-first to sixteenth centuries BCE), where .. (shrink)

What are the historical origins of aesthetic education? One of these comes from the eighteenth century. This became an important theme in a novel of the time. Published in 1761, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Julie, or the New Heloise: Letters of Two Lovers Who Live in a Small Town at the Foot of the Alps1 was an instant success in eighteenth-century Europe. Widely read, the novel made European culture self-conscious and forced it to pay attention to aspects of living that had gone (...) unnoticed or underappreciated, including taste and food.2 These aspects—taste and food—become concrete manifestations of aesthetic education. Through the voices of Julie and her tutor-turned-lover Saint Preux, they provide a lively critique of.. (shrink)

Husserl’s (2023) “Paradox of the Psychological Reduction,” with support and elucidation from Husserl’s published writings, shows the necessity of employing the phenomenological epoché and reduction in order to perform valid psychological research. The relationship between the transcendental and psychological reductions, including their closeness, differences, and peculiar identity are explored. Although necessary, the phenomenological method does not guarantee true psychological knowledge but rather requires a reflexive, self-critical, self-corrective historical process that confronts and overcomes naturalistic prejudice and other misguiding assumptions and dogma (...) as well as superficial and flawed research performances. Phenomenological psychology and philosophy are inseparable, in a bidirectional relationship that informs the socio-cultural sciences including empirical psychology and all disciplines that study persons, communities, human artifacts, and humanity. The implications and relevance of phenomenological method are spelled out in light of the history and contemporary challenges of psychology. (shrink)