Cognitive science is, more than anything else, a pursuit of cognitive mechanisms. To make headway towards a mechanistic account of any particular cognitive phenomenon, a researcher must choose among the many architectures available to guide and constrain the account. It is thus fitting that this volume on contemporary debates in cognitive science includes two issues of architecture, each articulated in the 1980s but still unresolved: " • Just how modular is the mind? – a debate initially pitting encapsulated mechanisms against (...) highly interactive ones. • Does the mind process language-like representations according to formal rules? – a debate initially pitting symbolic architectures against less language-like architectures. " Our project here is to consider the second issue within the broader context of where cognitive science has been and where it is headed. The notion that cognition in general—not just language processing—involves rules operating on language-like representations actually predates cognitive science. In traditional philosophy of mind, mental life is construed as involving propositional attitudes—that is, such attitudes towards propositions as believing, fearing, and desiring that they be true—and logical inferences from them. On this view, if a person desires that a proposition be true and believes that if she performs a certain action it will become true, she will make the inference and perform the action. (shrink)

In this article it will be concluded that systematic menstrual tracking in women’s sport has the potential to cause harm to athletes. Since the ruling of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) in the United States, concerns regarding menstrual health tracking have arisen. Research suggests that the menstrual tracking of female athletes presents potential risks to “women’s autonomy, privacy, and safety in sport” (Casto 2022, 1725). At present, the repercussions of systematic menstrual tracking are particularly under-scrutinized, and this paper (...) seeks to combine novel research in the sport sciences with present ethical debates in the philosophy of sports. Utilizing Beauvoir’s feminist philosophy (2011), this paper argues that systematic menstrual tracking may contribute to the wider system of women’s oppression by exploiting female athletes, as well as enabling the internalization of submissive behaviour in cultures where athletes are expected to comply unquestioningly. Five policy recommendations are made concerning autonomy, informed consent, education, safeguarding and data access. The overall findings of this paper propose that a more in-depth understanding of the links between data, privacy, and the menstrual cycle are required by sports organizations and governing bodies if athletes are to be protected in a future where systematic menstrual tracking is inevitable. (shrink)

We contend that diagrams are tools not only for communication but also for supporting the reasoning of biologists. In the mechanistic research that is characteristic of biology, diagrams delineate the phenomenon to be explained, display explanatory relations, and show the organized parts and operations of the mechanism proposed as responsible for the phenomenon. Both phenomenon diagrams and explanatory relations diagrams, employing graphs or other formats, facilitate applying visual processing to the detection of relevant patterns. Mechanism diagrams guide reasoning about how (...) the parts and operations work together to produce the phenomenon and what experiments need to be done to improve on the existing account. We examine how these functions are served by diagrams in circadian rhythm research. (shrink)

The idea that correspondences relating grammatical relations and semantics (argument structure constructions) are needed to account for simple sentence types is reviewed, clarified, updated and compared with two lexicalist alternatives. Traditional lexical rules take one verb as ‘input’ and create (or relate) a different verb as ‘output’. More recently, invisible derivational verb templates have been proposed, which treat argument structure patterns as zero derivational affixes that combine with a root verb to yield a new verb. While the derivational template perspective (...) can address several problems that arise for traditional lexical rules, it still faces problems in accounting for idioms, which often contain specifications that are not appropriately assigned to individual verbs or derivational affixes (regarding adjuncts, modification, and inflection). At the same time, it is clear that verbs play a central role in determining their distribution. The balance between verbs and phrasal argument structure constructions is addressed via the Principles of Semantic Coherence and Correspondence together with a usage-based hierarchy of constructions that contains entries which can include particular verbs and other lexical material. (shrink)

This study examines the relationship between the ethical behavior and customer orientation of insurance sales agents engaged in the selling of complex services, e.g. health, life, auto, and property insurance. The effect of ethical and customer-oriented behavior, measured by the SOCO scale (Saxe and Weitz, 1982), on the annual premiums generated by the agents is also investigated. Customeroriented sales agents are found to engage in less unethical behavior than their sales-oriented counterparts. Further, sales-oriented agents are found to perceive greater levels (...) of unethical behavior among their significant others. Alarmingly, higher levels of sales premiums are found among those agents who engage in unethical behavior. (shrink)

This paper considers the early reception of Einstein's theory of relativity in the Arab world, with emphasis directed to its popularization. Educated Arabs generally had no contention with Einstein's political, religious or cultural background. On the contrary, they viewed him as the genius of the age and defended him against his critics.

Vogelstein cautions medical organizations against jumping into the fray of controversial issues, yet proffers the 2012 American Academy of Pediatrics' Task Force policy position on infant male circumcision as ‘an appropriate use of position-statements.’ Only a scratch below the surface of this policy statement uncovers the Task Force's failure to consider Vogelstein's many caveats. The Task Force supported the cultural practice by putting undeserved emphasis on questionable scientific data, while ignoring or underplaying the importance of valid contrary scientific data. Without (...) any effort to quantitatively assess the risk/benefit balance, the Task Force concluded the benefits of circumcision outweighed the risks, while acknowledging that the incidence of risks was unknown. This Task Force differed from other Academy policy-forming panels by ignoring the Academy's standard quality measures and by not appointing members with extensive research experience, extensive publications, or recognized expertise directly related to this topic. Despite nearly 100 publications available at the time addressing the substantial ethical issues associated with infant male circumcision, the Task Force chose to ignore the ethical controversy. They merely stated, with minimal justification, the opinion of one of the Task Force members that the practice of infant male circumcision is morally permissible. The release of the report has fostered an explosion of academic discussion on the ethics of infant male circumcision with a number of national medical organizations now decrying the practice as a human rights violation. (shrink)

Ethical questions normally arise in sport because its participants are human moral agents and because its practice community entails the observance of rules and responsibilities that humans generally owe one another in a social practice of voluntary competition. Since nature sports are not defined by this kind of inter-agential activity, it would appear that there are no comparable ethical constraints on their pursuit. This paper considers conflicts of preference versus right between humans, how these are resolved, and whether these rights (...) are relevant in assessment of nature sport activity vis-à-vis nonhuman creatures. Relying on a goods perspective instead of a rights framework, via Korsgaard, I argue against an assumption that human preference is sufficient to override consideration of nonhuman animals’ functional goods. (shrink)

Wikipedia is known as a free online encyclopedia. Wikipedia uses largely transparent writing and editing processes, which aim at providing the user with quality information through a democratic collaborative system. However, one aspect of these processes is not transparent—the identity of contributors, editors, and administrators. We argue that this particular lack of transparency jeopardizes the validity of the information being produced by Wikipedia. We analyze the social and ethical consequences of this lack of transparency in Wikipedia for all users, but (...) especially students; we assess the corporate social performance issues involved, and we propose courses of action to compensate for the potential problems. We show that Wikipedia has the appearance, but not the reality, of responsible, transparent information production. (shrink)

“What are you prepared to do to win?” This is a question that any serious competitor will at one time or another have to consider. The answer that one is inclined to make, I shall argue, is revealing of the deeper character of the individual participant in sport as both physical competitor and moral person. To that end, I examine one of the classic responses to the question, gamesmanship, which can be characterised as an attempt to win one game by (...) playing another. I contend that gamesmanship is a deliberate strategy of competition that has certain paradoxical outcomes; while it may produce an enhanced competitive environment that calls forth superior performances from participants, its more aggravated manifestations are in the long term athletically self-destructive for those who rely on them as a competitive device, and argue the presence of more profound underlying moral failings as well. (shrink)

A new theoretical approach to language has emerged in the past 10–15 years that allows linguistic observations about form–meaning pairings, known as ‘construc- tions’, to be stated directly. Constructionist approaches aim to account for the full range of facts about language, without assuming that a particular subset of the data is part of a privileged ‘core’. Researchers in this field argue that unusual constructions shed light on more general issues, and can illuminate what is required for a complete account of (...) language. (shrink)

The paper argues that authentic human selfhood requires the adequate integration of bodily awareness into the self-conception of self, and that a highly significant contributor to this process is athletic activity (sports). The role of athletics in self-integration is examined from phenomenological and moral-political standpoints, and it is argued that, although athletic activity's inherent goal of realizing ontological unity through embodied intentionality is ideally suited to this task, the organization of sport too frequently thwarts this purpose, either through exclusion of (...) potential athletes or exploitation of committed participants. (shrink)

The increasing demographic changes of populations in many countries require an approach for managing the complexity of sociocultural differences. Such an approach could help healthcare organizations to address healthcare disparities and inequities, and promote cultural safety for healthcare providers and patients alike. Almutairi's critical cultural competence (CCC) is a comprehensive approach that holds great promise for managing difficulties arising from sociocultural and linguistic issues during cross‐cultural interactions.CCChas addressed the limitations of many other cultural competence approaches that have been discussed in (...) the literature. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to define the construct ofCCCand the theoretical components of theCCC. (shrink)

Excellence in sport performance is normally taken to be a matter of superior performance of physical movements or quantitative outcomes of movements. This paper considers whether a wider conception can be afforded by certain kinds of nature based sport. The interplay between technical skill and aesthetic experience in nature based sports is explored, and the extent to which it contributes to a distinction between different sport-based approaches to natural environments. The potential for aesthetic appreciation of environmental engagement is found to (...) be strongly dependent on whether or not environmental engagement is exploited for the end of producing a quantifiable result or enhancing technical skill. It is also argued that an existential rather than spectatorial attitude to aesthetic experience is offered by specifically nature oriented sport. Aesthetic experience achieved in this way is therefore neither passive nor detached, but extends Berleant's concept of participatory environmental aesthetics and underpins both an alternate (wide) conception of excellence in sport activity and a richer experience of aesthetic engagement than more objectivised standpoints. (shrink)

Sguardo d'insieme -- Armonia delle sfere celesti : Hildegard von Bingen, symphonia -- Il tempo di Dio : Johann Sebastian Bach, Cantata Gottes Zeit -- Trasmutazioni : Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Die Zauberflöte -- "Questo bacio vada al mondo intero" : Ludwig van Beethoven, An die Freude -- Viaggio d'inverno : Franz Schubert, Winterreise -- Inni all notte : Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde -- L'ultimo rito : Richard Wagner, Parsifal -- Azzurre solitudini : Gustav Mahler, Terza sinfonia -- Universi sonori (...) : Gustav Mahler, Ottava sinfonia -- Orizzonti perduti : Gustav Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde -- Labirinti : Richard Strauss, Also sprach Zarathustra -- Cortei di ombre : Richard Strauss, Metamorphosen -- La terza via : Omaggio a Francesco d'Avalos. (shrink)

Oneanaphora (e.g.,this is a good one) has been used as a key diagnostic in syntactic analyses of the English noun phrase, and “one‐replacement” has also figured prominently in debates about the learnability of language. However, much of this work has been based on faulty premises, as a few perceptive researchers, including Ray Jackendoff, have made clear. Abandoning the view of anaphoricone(a‐one) as a form of syntactic replacement allows us to take a fresh look at various uses of the wordone. In (...) the present work, we investigate its use as a cardinal number (1‐one) in order to better understand its anaphoric use. Like all cardinal numbers, 1‐onecan only quantify an individuated entity and provides an indefinite reading by default. Owing to unique combinatoric properties, cardinal numbers defy consistent classification as determiners, quantifiers, adjectives, or nouns. Once the semantics and distribution of cardinal numbers, including 1‐one, are appreciated, many properties ofa‐onefollow with minimal stipulation. We claim that 1‐oneanda‐oneare distinct but very closely related lexemes. When 1‐oneappears without a noun (e.g.,Takeone), it is nearly indistinguishable froma‐one(e.g.,takeone)—the only differences being interpretive (1‐oneforegrounds its cardinality whilea‐onedoes not) and prosodic (presence versus absence of primary accent). While we ultimately argue that a family of constructions is required to describe the full range of syntactic contexts in whichoneappears, the proposed network accounts for properties ofa‐oneby allowing it to inherit most of its syntactic and interpretive constraints from its historical predecessor, 1‐one. (shrink)

Medical intervention in childbirth raises a number of ethical issues which have received too little attention in American obstetrics. A number of these issues are surveyed in the first section of this essay. In the second section, the hospital and the roles characteristically ascribed to patients, staff, and obstetrical practitioners are shown to provide an unsatisfactory social setting for birth. Several proposals for improving existing arrangements or for providing alternatives are offered. It is argued that procedures for eliciting and maintaining (...) fidelity to patient values for the birth experience are crucial elements in acceptable care. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This book examines Latina/o college student leadership and leadership development in higher education. Lozano analyzes emerging frameworks, empirical research, leadership models, essays, and promising practices to provide insight into how Latina/o students experience and promote leadership in higher education.

My aim in this paper is two?fold. I start by contrasting three versions of externalist arguments based on etiological considerations, whose differences are not often appreciated. My purpose in doing so is to isolate one of these versions of externalism as most supportive of current anti?individualist attitudes toward the mental. My second aim is to show that this version, which I call (for reasons soon to be clear) Dialectal Etiology , is marred to a greater extent than the other two (...) by an important problem of language individuation.ii.. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the four Women and Labour conferences which were held in Australian capital cities over the seven years between 1978 and 1984. I explore the ways in which the history of Australian feminist activism during this period could be written, questioning in particular the claim that the Women and Labour conferences have been central to the history of Australian feminism. I discuss the ways in which a historical sense could be established, using writings about the conferences (...) as historical ‘evidence’, that race and ethnic divisions between women had not been important to the ‘women's movement’ until 1984. In other words, I challenge the construction of this conference as a turning point – not only in the feminist politicization of immigrant and Aboriginal women, but also in the politicization of all feminists about race and ethnic divisions. More broadly, I am interested in how a history would be written if it aimed to get to the ‘truth’ about racism and about the feminist activism of immigrant women. How would the apparent lack of written ‘evidence’ – at least until 1984 – of immigrant women's feminist activism, and of the awareness of Australian feminists about issues of racism, be written into this history? In addition, I suggest that it is important to the writing of feminist history in Australia that published documentation has been mostly produced by anglo women, and is thus partial and mediated by the lived, embodied experiences of anglo women. Finally, my intention is to interrogate commonly understood narratives about Australian feminist history, to challenge their seamlessness, and to suggest the importance of recognizing the tension within feminist discourses between difference as benign diversity and difference as disruption. (shrink)

Juris-Data is one of the largest case-study base in France. The case studies are indexed by legal classification elaborated by the Juris-Data Group. Knowledge engineering was used to design an intelligent interface for information retrieval based on this classification. The aim of the system is to help users find the case-study which is the most relevant to their own.The approach is potentially very useful, but for standardising it for other legal document bases it is necessary to extract a legal classification (...) of the primary documents. Thus, a methodology for the construction of these classifications was designed together with a framework for index construction. The project led to the implementation of a Legal Case Studies Engineering Framework based on the accumulated experimentation and the methodologies designed. It consists of a set of computerised tools which support the life-cycle of the legal document from their processing by legal experts to their consultation by clients. (shrink)

In two experiments, participants had to choose between a sure and a risky option. The sure option was presented either in a gain or a loss frame. Need was defined as a minimum score the participants had to reach. Moreover, choices were made under two different time constraints and with three different levels of induced need to be reached within a fixed number of trials. The two experiments differed with respect to the specific amounts to win and the need levels. (...) The $$2 \times 2 \times 3$$2×2×3 design was a within-subject design. Data were evaluated on an overall and on a group level, the latter based on participants’ stated risk preference and on revealed preferences using cluster analysis across subjects. Overall, the results showed riskier behavior when the choice options were presented as losses as compared to gains and when the induced need was highest. Time limits enhanced the framing effect. (shrink)

We contrast reactive and endogenously active perspectives on brain activity. Both have been pursued continuously in neurophysiology laboratories since the early 20thcentury, but the endogenous perspective has received relatively little attention until recently. One of the many successes of the reactive perspective was the identification, in the second half of the 20th century, of the distinctive contributions of different brain regions involved in visual processing. The recent prominence of the endogenous perspective is due to new findings of ongoing oscillatory activity (...) in the brain at a wide range of time scales, exploiting such techniques as single-cell recording, EEG, and fMRI. We recount some of the evidence pointing to ways in which this endogenous activity is relevant to cognition and behavior. Our major objective is to consider certain implications of the contrast between the reactive and endogenous perspectives. In particular, we relate these perspectives to two different characterizations of explanation in the new mechanistic philosophy of science. In a basic mechanistic explanation, the operations of a mechanism are characterized qualitatively and as functioning sequentially until a terminating condition is realized. In contrast, a dynamic mechanistic explanation allows for non-sequential organization and emphasizes quantitative modeling of the mechanisms's behavior. For example, with appropriate parameter values a set of differential equations can be used to demonstrate ongoing oscillations in a system organized with feedback loops. We conclude that the basic conception of mechanistic explanation is adequate for reactive accounts of brain activity, but dynamical accounts are required to explain sustained, endogenous activity. (shrink)

Think of this paper as an exercise in applied philosophy of language. It has both semantic and deontic concerns. More than about the meaning of ‘marriage,’ it is about how one goes about determining the meaning of social kind terms like ‘marriage’. But it is equally about the place of philosophy of language in the legislative sphere, and inter alia, about the roles and responsibilities of philosophers in public life.

How does one become an effective teacher? What can be done to stem high attrition rates among beginning teachers? While many teachers are left to ‘sink or swim’ in their first year—learning by trial and error, there remain a number of outstanding examples of collaboration and collegiality in teacher induction programs. Analysis of the most exemplary teacher induction programs from Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand and the United States revealed common attributes and exceptional features. The most successful (...) teacher induction programs reported here include opportunities for experts and neophytes to learn together in a supportive environment promoting time for collaboration, reflection and acculturation into the profession of teaching. Furthermore, several practices unique to specific regions were highlighted. These included extended internship programs, specially trained mentors, comprehensive inservice training and reduced teaching assignments for beginning teachers with an emphasis on assistance rather than assessment. (shrink)

Talents that selectively facilitate the acquisition of high levels of skill are said to be present in some children but not others. The evidence for this includes biological correlates of specific abilities, certain rare abilities in autistic savants, and the seemingly spontaneous emergence of exceptional abilities in young children, but there is also contrary evidence indicating an absence of early precursors of high skill levels. An analysis of positive and negative evidence and arguments suggests that differences in early experiences, preferences, (...) opportunities, habits, training, and practice are the real determinants of excellence. Key Words: exceptional ability; expertise; gift; innate capacity; music; potential; prodigy; specific ability; talent. (shrink)

Different from other books on Fanon, this book approaches him as both a political philosopher and political sociologist of the African experience.

The completion of the Human Genome Project has opened up unprecedented possibilities in healthcare, but also ethical and social dilemmas in terms of how these can be achieved. Genomic information can be seen as a "global public good" (GPG), in that it is represented by knowledge in the public domain and across national boundaries. Lack of investment, infrastructure and expertise in developing countries means that they are unable to take advantage of these GPG characteristics to address their health needs, fuelling (...) fears of a growing "genomics divide". Some have suggested an international knowledge sharing and capacity building network, a Global Genomics Initiative, as a means to harness the potential of genomics to reduce inequalities in health between North and South. Three UNESCO declarations also call for cooperation between developed and developing countries in genomics research and science and technology in general. Using international relations theories around global governance and networks as a conceptual framework, this paper examines whether these initiatives are likely to succeed in providing effective governance of genomics. (shrink)

J S Mill used the term ‘dead dogma’ to describe a belief that has gone unquestioned for so long and to such a degree that people have little idea why they accept it or why they continue to believe it. When wives and children were considered chattel, it made sense for the head of a household to have a ‘sovereignal right’ to do as he wished with his property. Now that women and children are considered to have the full complement (...) of human rights and slavery has been abolished, it is no longer acceptable for someone to have a ‘right’ to completely control the life of another human being. Revealingly, parental rights tend to be invoked only when parents want to do something that is arguably not in their child9s best interest. Infant male circumcision is a case in point. Instead of parental _rights_, I claim that parents have an _obligation_ to protect their children9s rights as well as to preserve the future options of those children so far as possible. In this essay, it is argued that the notion that parents have a right to make decisions concerning their children9s bodies and minds—_irrespective of the child9s best interests_—is a dead dogma. The ramifications of this argument for the circumcision debate are then spelled out and discussed. (shrink)

Grief and its Transcendence: Memory, Identity, Creativity is a landmark contribution that provides fresh insights into the experience and process of mourning. It includes fourteen original essays by pre-eminent psychoanalysts, historians, classicists, theologians, architects, art-historians and artists, that take on the subject of normal, rather than pathological mourning. In particular, it considers the diversity of the mourning process; the bereavement of ordinary vs. extraordinary loss; the contribution of mourning to personal and creative growth; and individual, social, and cultural means of (...) transcending grief. The book is divided into three parts, each including two to four essays followed by one or two critical discussions. Co-editor _Adele Tutter’s_ Prologue outlines the salient themes and tensions that emerge from the volume. Part I juxtaposes the consideration of grief in antiquity with an examination of the contemporary use of memorials to facilitate communal remembrance. Part II offers intimate first-person accounts of mourning from four renowned psychoanalysts that challenge long-held psychoanalytic formulations of mourning. Part III contains deeply personal essays that explore the use of sculpture, photography, and music to withstand, mourn, and transcend loss on individual, cultural and political levels. Drawing on the humanistic wisdom that underlies psychoanalytic thought, co-editor _Léon Wurmser’s_ Epilogue closes the volume. Grief and its Transcendence will be a must for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and scholars within other disciplines who are interested in the topics of grief, bereavement and creativity. (shrink)