Should wilderness be understood as primarily untrammeled or primarily natural? In this paper, we examine the conceptual and philosophical roots of untrammeled and natural in the context of the 1964 Wilderness Act and show how in some situations tension can arise between them, leading to a stewardship dilemma and subsequent debate over the future conservation role of wilderness. After showing that this debate is ultimately rooted in a false dichotomy, we offer a conceptual framework that presents managers with the tools (...) necessary to shepherd the wilderness idea through the changing environmental realities of the Anthropocene, and continue to allow wilderness to be both a cornerstone and touchstone for conservation in the 21st century. (shrink)

There is a need to understand more of the risk factors involved in the process from suicide ideation to suicide attempt. Cognitive control processes may be important factors in assessing vulnerability to suicide. A version of the Stroop procedure, Delis–Kaplan Executive Function System Color–Word Interference Test and Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function were used in this study to test attention control and cognitive shift, as well as to assess everyday executive function of 98 acute suicidal psychiatric patients. The Columbia (...) Suicide History Form was used to identify a group of suicide ideators and suicide attempters. Results showed that suicide attempters scored lower on attention control than suicide ideators who had no history of attempted suicide. The self-report in the BRIEF-A inventory did not reflect any cognitive differences between suicide ideators and suicide attempters. A logistic regression analysis showed that a poorer attention control score was associated with the suicide attempt group, whereas a poorer cognitive shift score was associated with the suicide ideation group. The results found in this study suggest that suicide attempters may struggle with control of attention or inhibiting competing responses but not with cognitive flexibility. (shrink)

Depression is a highly recurrent disorder with limited treatment alternatives for reducing risk of subsequent episodes. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and attention bias modification (ABM) separately have shown some promise in reducing depressive symptoms. This study investigates (a) if group-based ACT had a greater impact in reducing residual symptoms of depression over a 12-month follow-up than a control condition, and (b) if preceding ACT with ABM produced added benefits. This multisite study consisted of two phases. In phase 1, participants (...) with a history of depression, currently in remission (N= 244), were randomized to either receive 14 days of ABM or a control condition. In phase 2, a quasi- experimental design was adopted, and only phase-1 participants from the Sørlandet site (N= 124) next received an 8-week group-based ACT intervention. Self-reported and clinician-rated depression symptoms were assessed at baseline, immediately after phase 1 and at 1, 2, 6, and 12 months after the conclusion of phase 1. At 12-month follow-up, participants who received ACT exhibited fewer self-reported and clinician-rated depressive symptoms. There were no significant differences between ACT groups preceded by ABM or a control condition. There were no significant differences between ACT groups preceded by ABM or a control condition. Group-based ACT successfully decreased residual symptoms in depression over 12 months, suggesting some promise in preventing relapse. (shrink)

Impairments in executive functioning are prevalent in chronic pain conditions, with cognitive inflexibility being the most frequently reported. The current randomized, cross-over trial, piloted a computerized cognitive training program based on Relational Frame Theory, targeting improvement in cognitive flexibility. At baseline, 73 chronic pain patients completed testing on pre-selected outcomes of executive functioning, alongside IQ measures. When tested three times over the course of 5 months, there was a drop-out rate of 40% at the third time point, leaving 44 patients (...) who had data at all time points. The results showed that there was a substantial learning effect from the MINDFLEX training and a substantial time-dependent improvement on the primary outcomes of increased flexibility, but that this could not be tied to active training. In conclusion, this small study indicated a learning effect as well as improvement on primary outcomes. Based on the current results, a larger trial with improved feasibility of training is warranted. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was an extraordinarily original thinker, whose influence on twentieth-century thinking far outside the bounds of philosophy alone. In this engaging Introduction, A.C. Grayling makes Wittgenstein's thought accessible to the general reader by explaining the nature and impact of Wittgenstein's views. He describes both his early and later philosophy, the differences and connections between them, and gives a fresh assessment of Wittgenstein's continuing influence on contemporary thought.

In this short paper I propose that the sensorimotor approach to perception is a tree yielding two distinct theoretical fruits. One fruit is sensorimotor reductionism. The other is sensorimotor integrationism. In this paper I try to explain what makes these fruits different.

David Chalmers appears to assume that we can meaningfully discuss what goes on in human heads without paying any attention to the words in which we couch our statements. This paper challenges this assumption and argues that the initial problem is that of metalanguage: if we want to say something clear and valid about us humans, we must think about ourselves outside conceptual English created by one particular history and culture and try to think from a global, panhuman point of (...) view. This means that instead of relying on untranslatable English words such as 'consciousness' and 'experience' we must try to rely on panhuman concepts expressed in cross-translatable words such as THINK, KNOW, and FEEL (Wierzbicka, 2018). The paper argues that after 'a hundred years of consciousness studies' it is time to try to say something about us (humans), about how we think and how we differ from cats and bats, in words that are clear, stable, and human rather than parochially English. (shrink)

Book Information A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition. By John Rawls. Oxford University Press. Oxford. 1999. Pp. xxii + 538. Hardback, £25.00. Paperback, £12.99.

The dictionary shows philosophers at their best (and their worst), at their most perverse and their most elegant. Organised by philosopher, and indexed by thought, concept and phrase, it enables readers to discover who said what, and what was said by whom. Over 300 philosophers are represented, from Aristotle to Zeno, including Einstein, Aquinas, Sartre and De Beauvoir, and the quotations range from short cryptic phrases to longer statements. This Dictionary of Philosophical Quotations d will not change your life. It (...) will change your mind. (shrink)

This is the first-ever critical history of sociology in Britain, written by one of the world's leading scholars in the field. A. H. Halsey presents a vivid and authoritative picture of the neglect, expansion, fragmentation, and explosion of the discipline during the past century. The book examines the literary and scientific contributions to the origin of the discipline, and the challenges faced by the discipline at the dawn of a new century.

The aim of this study was to identify and analyse ethical decision making in the home care of persons with long-term mental illness. A focus was placed on how health care workers interpret and deal with the principle of autonomy in actual situations. Three focus groups involving mental health nurses who were experienced in the home care of persons with chronic mental illness were conducted in order to stimulate an interactive dialogue on this topic. A constant comparative analysis of the (...) transcribed audiotaped sessions identified a central theme that concerned the moral symbolic meaning of ‘home’. This reflected the health care workers’ conflict between their professional role and their moral role, which they perceived as unclear. (shrink)

Not being satisfied with the interpretation offered by Sankara and his followers, or some other teachers the author has attempted in the following pages to present to the readers his own interpretation of the work as he has understood it. But in no way does he claim that his interpretation is the interpretation, i.e., the interpretation intended by Gaudapada himself. In the present volume the author has given a new edition of the text of the Agamasastra based on a number (...) of MSS and different editions, followed by an English translation. After this comes his annotation. At the end there are Appendixes including the text and English translation of the Mandukya Upanisad, VAriants of the MSS used for the edition of the text of the Agamasastra, and different indexes. (shrink)

Extensively updated to include clinical findings over the last two decades, this third edition of A Practitioner's Guide to Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy reviews the philosophy, theory, and clinical practice of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. This model is based on the work of Albert Ellis, who had an enormous influence on the field of psychotherapy over his 50 years of practice and scholarly writing. Designed for both therapists-in-training and seasoned professionals, this practical treatment manual and guide introduces the basic principles of (...) rational-emotive behavior therapy, explains general therapeutic strategies, and offers many illustrative dialogues between therapist and patient. The volume breaks down each stage of therapy to present the exact procedures and skills therapists need, and numerous case studies illustrate how to use these skills. The authors describe both technical and specific strategic interventions, and they stress taking an integrative approach. The importance of building a therapeutic alliance and the use of cognitive, emotive, evocative, imaginal, and behavioral interventions serves as the unifying theme of the approach. Intervention models are presented for the treatment of anxiety, depression, trauma, anger, personality disorders, and addictions. Psychologists, clinical social workers, mental health counselors, psychotherapists, and students and trainees in these areas will find this book useful in learning to apply rational-emotive behavior therapy in practice. (shrink)

We attempt to discern what Badioursquo;s philosophical system provides for thinking of education in a form which separates it from its contemporary representation in the state. These notes oppose to this state form Badiou#39;s declaration that #39;the only education is an education by truthsrsquo;. We pursue this in three sections. First, we will address the significance and function of the term lsquo;conditionsrsquo;. Secondly we will address Badioursquo;s essay lsquo;Art and Philosophyrsquo; from Handbook of Inaesthetics, the only essay in fact where (...) Badiou addresses education in a specific manner and in which Badiou discusses the link between art and philosophy in terms of the lsquo;pedagogical themersquo;: A theme, he says, that has been brought to collapse. Thirdly we will attempt to discern what might make up whatnbsp; Badiou refers to as the lsquo;fourth modalityrsquo; of the link between philosophy and its conditions through a somewhat speculative discussion of the dual lsquo;militantrsquo; praxis known in Badioursquo;s work as lsquo;subtractionrsquo; and lsquo;forcingrsquo;. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A FAOT ABOUT THE VIRTUES A. CHADWICK RAY Oentrai OoUege Peila, Iowa PHILIPPA FOOT remarks in Virtues and Vices that "with the nota;ble exception of Peter Gea;ch hardly 100.yone sees ·any difficulty in the thought that virtues may sometimes be di·splayed in bald ructions." 1 That a man may use his courage to deplorable ends; that 'a tea.ah.er ma.y show charity in igiving a miudent undeserved credit-these seem to (...) ibe hardly problema.tic possibilities. Yet Aquinas upholds •a definition of morrul virtue as " a good quality o[ the mind, by which we live rightly, of whioh no one cain make bad use,..."2 And Aristotle's conception of the man Ol:f p:riactica:l reason as the standard of moral virtue likewise seems to p!'lec1ude a virtue 's being misused.3 Times change, and rupparently eV'en virtue is not what it used to be. Nevertheless I mean here to survey the resour.ces of moral psyichology in the tradition of.Airistotle to see what sort of grounding can be found for the no-bad-use thesis. Presumably Geach stamds wlmost 1 afone today on this question, because the more traditional view would seem defensible only if it is taken as analytic. We could stipulate that an action wilil be called virtuous only if on balance it is the wisest alternative aivaifaible to the agent, but the utility of such a l Philippa Foot, Virtues and Vices (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 15. In After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 216, Macintyre finds Hume, Kant, Mill, and Rawls taking virtues as dispositions to conform to certain rules. To the extent that rules are unreliable, the virtues will be too. 2 Aquinas, Summa theoiogiae, I-II, q.55, a.4. a Aristotle, Nioomaohean Flthios 1106b36-7a2, 1113a30-31. 430 A. CHADWICK RAY concept would be doubtfrnl, and 'virtue' would seem to name no real thing. The'1'e are, after aH, appwrently anomalous cases, as wihen a teacher is moved to indulgence by an undeserving student's plea and seems to show kindness to a fault. The deifense oif the no-bad-use thesis requires us to deny that real kindness is shown here. But if no better justification for the denia~ can be offered than that the action is wrong and so cannot be virtuous, the thesis wil:l express only an a11bitrary decision about how to use 'virtue ' and related terms. But if such deni1als can he justified by appeal to facts about human nature, then the no.:brud-use thesis itself may perhaps be taken a;s descriptive of certain realities constitutive of human life. After considel'ing some of the conditions of vir:tuous action and the possibility of degrees of virtue (section III), I shaill argue (IV and V) that the opening sentence of Aristotle 's Nicomachean Ethics affords a bctua:l ba;sis for sustaining the no-had-use thesis as descriptive of virtues as we find them; that if "every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good " is perhaps an overstatement, still the humanness and intelligibility of an action would seem to depend on its aiming at some good; and that it is largely by trying to consider actions independently of the goods they aim a;t that we imagine virtues able to se1we unworthy ends. Payffig fuH rega11d to the purposiveness of human action and the desires expressed in it will also make it possible (VI) to avnid oonoluding with Aristotle that the virtues are inseparable from eaich other. I conclude (VII) with some brief refteetion on the meaning of my departures from Aristotle. Before offering my own interpretation of the Aristotelian resources, though, I briefly contend for the reality of moral virtues (as tiraditiona1ly understood ) against conventioIJJa1ist interpretations ('section I) and then (H) consider an ailtemative account (roughly Geach's) of the nature of the virtues that would sa¥e the no-bad-use thesis. A FACT ABOUT THE VIRTUES 431 I. Virtues as Teleological Di8}Jositions Why indeed speak of vi1rtues at a1l? Behavior would seem to be describahle and e:x:p1a... (shrink)

P-hacking or data dredging involves manipulation of the research data in order to obtain a statistically significant result. The reasons behind P-hacking and the consequences of the same are discussed in the present manuscript.

Panentheism has become a familiar term in contemporary Christian systematic theology and philosophy, for it is widely believed to be an appropriate way to overcome the alleged dualism found in the classical God-world relationship. But what is meant by the term panentheism, and how does it work so as to avoid becoming still another form of pantheism or cosmic monism? In 2004 Philip Clayton and the late Arthur Peacocke published a set of papers on the topic of panentheism that came (...) from a conference in England on that topic in 2001.1 Yet, while there were certain broad affinities in approach and content among many of the papers, none of them used precisely the same conceptual model for analysis of the concept. As.. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a data-political spectacle. Data are omnipresent in prediction and surveillance, and even in resistance to governmental measures. How have citizens, whose lives were suddenly governed by pandemic data, understood and reacted to the pandemic as a data-political phenomenon? Based on a study carried out in Denmark, we show how society became divided into those viewing themselves as supporters of the governmental approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, and those who oppose it. These groups seem to subscribe (...) to very different truths. We argue, however, that both sides share a positivist ideal and think that data and facts ought to rule. Both sides have also come to acknowledge that data are not unambiguous, and both cast increasing doubts on political uses of data. Though the people agreeing with, and the people opposing, the government strategy are in many ways surprisingly similar with respect to epistemic norms, they differ in what they perceive as dangerous or desirable, and in who they believe are telling the “truth” about the pandemic. These different perceptions result in different types of pandemic-related activism. Resistance against restrictions is often understood as inspired by conspiracy theories and in some countries anti-restrictions activism has turned violent. In our case, however, we suggest that when looking at similarities and differences across both groups, the gap between those opposing and those agreeing with the government approach is not as unbridgeable as might be suggested by their beliefs in differing truths and the emerging societal division. (shrink)

The basic (negative and positive) methodological maxims of three currents of philosophy of science (logical empiricism, falsificationism, and postpositivism) are formulated. Many of these maxims (stratagems) are controversial, e.g., the stance about the nonsense of metaphysics, and that of its indispensability. The restricted validity of these maxims allows for their unification. Within the framework of most of them there may be a relationship of (synchronic, or diachronic) subordination of the contradicting desiderata. In this vein ten stratagems are formulated.

Context: The theory of radical constructivism offers a tool for the evaluation of knowledge in general: especially with regard to its epistemic and ontological character. This applies in particular to knowledge that is non-cognitive, such as, e.g., ethical convictions. Problem: What impact can radical constructivism have on the topic of ethics? Specifically, how can ethical issues be resolved within a radical-constructivist epistemic approach? Method: I extend the theory of radical constructivism to include also items of non-cognitive knowledge. This makes it (...) possible to discuss ethical issues, which are non-cognitive, in a constructivist epistemic and ontological perspective. Some arguments against this conception of “strictly personal ethics” are discussed. Results: Radical constructivism is neutral on ethical issues, and thus cannot be invoked to endorse any particular ethical position. However, this causes no problem for the theory: the individual knower will construct her own ethical values and convictions, as part of her store of non-cognitive knowledge, in interaction with her environment (including other individuals. Hence ethical values cannot be argued in cognitive terms; and this elevates the knower into a position of personal responsibility with respect to ethical issues. Constructivist content: I focus on the role played by radical constructivism in the approach to cognitive vs. non-cognitive knowledge. The construction of knowledge (of any kind) emerges as a strictly personal enterprise. For instance, in the context addressed here, constructed non-cognitive knowledge forms a basis for the individual knower’s ethical position. (shrink)