Computer users are often the last line of defense in computer security. However, with repeated exposures to system messages and computer security warnings, neural and behavioral responses show evidence of habituation. Habituation has been demonstrated at a neural level as repetition suppression where responses are attenuated with subsequent repetitions. In the brain, repetition suppression to visual stimuli has been demonstrated in multiple cortical areas, including the occipital lobe and medial temporal lobe. Prior research into the repetition suppression effect has generally (...) focused on a single repetition and has not examined the pattern of signal suppression with repeated exposures. We used complex, everyday stimuli, in the form of images of computer programs or security warning messages, to examine the repetition suppression effect across repeated exposures. The use of computer warnings as stimuli also allowed us to examine the activation of learned fearful stimuli. We observed widespread linear decreases in activation with repeated exposures, suggesting that repetition suppression continues after the first repetition. Further, we found greater activation for warning messages compared to neutral images in the anterior insula, pre-supplemental motor area, and inferior frontal gyrus, suggesting differential processing of security warning messages. However, the repetition suppression effect was similar in these regions for both warning messages and neutral images. Additionally, we observed an increase of activation in the default mode network with repeated exposures, suggestive of increased mind wandering with continuing habituation. (shrink)

This is a new release of the original 1926 edition.

This chapter provides an overview of how existential phenomenology has influenced qualitative research methods across a range of disciplines across the social, health, educational, and psychological sciences. It focuses specifically on how the concepts of “existential structures,” or “existentials”—such as selfhood, temporality, spatiality, affectivity, and embodiment—have been used in qualitative research. After providing a brief introduction to what qualitative research is and why philosophers should be interested in it, the chapter provides clear, straightforward examples of how qualitative researchers have used (...) existentials to analyze qualitative data and design qualitative studies. The chapter is intended to introduce philosophers to existential approaches to phenomenological qualitative research, with the aim of facilitating interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration. (shrink)

This powerful critique of Marx's historical materialism - as a theory of power, as an account of history, and as a political theory -has been revised to take note of the profound intellectual and political changes that have occurred since the first edition was published. Reviews from the first edition 'Giddens draws upon a formidable knowledge of anthropology, archaeology, geography, and philosophy to demonstrate the limitations of Marxism and to formulate his own interpretation of the history of societies ... He (...) does a masterful job of setting his theory within a historical and critical framework of writings on Marx. His clarity of thought and his deft and often humorous handling of the unavoidable jargon of sociology and Marxist political theory makes this book a critical work of the highest quality.' Journal of International Law and Politics 'By contrast with many practictioners in the rather murky area of social theory, Giddens clearly seeks to make himself understood, and he has the useful quality of provoking one to argument. He has let light into some dark places.' The Times Higher Education Supplement 'Although Marx, Durkheim, and Weber continue to fill more index space than any other authors, Critique is Giddens's most explicit and committed statement of his own conceptualization of social theory ... It is his most original and therefore most vulnerable book, at once a cause for celebration and an invitation to critical reappraisal of the author's entire theoretical project.' Environment and Planning. (shrink)

Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID, is a technology which has been receiving considerable attention as of late. It is a fairly simple technology involving radio wave communication between a microchip and an electronic reader, in which an identification number stored on the chip is transmitted and processed; it can frequently be found in inventory tracking and access control systems. In this paper, we examine the current uses of RFID, as well as identifying potential future uses of the technology, including item-level (...) tagging, human implants and RFID-chipped passports, while discussing the impacts that each of these uses could potentially have on personal privacy. Possible guidelines for RFID’s use, including Fair Information Principles and the RFID Bill of Rights are then presented, as well as technological solutions to personal privacy problems, such as tag killing and blocker tags, as well as simple aluminum foil shields for passports. It is then claimed, though, that guidelines and technological solutions will be ineffective for privacy protection, and that legislation will be necessary to guard against the threats posed by the RFID. Finally, we present what we believe to be the most important legislative points that must be addressed. (shrink)

From the late-fifteenth century onwards, scholars across Europe began to write books about how to read and evaluate histories. These pioneering works - which often take surprisingly modern-sounding positions - grew from complex early modern debates about law, religion, and classical scholarship. In this book, based on the Trevelyan Lectures of 2005, Anthony Grafton explains why so many of these works were written, why they attained so much insight - and why, in the centuries that followed, most scholars gradually (...) forgot that they had existed. Elegant and accessible, What Was History? is a deliberate evocation of E. H. Carr’s celebrated and icononclastic Trevelyan Lectures on What Is History?, and will appeal to a broad readership of students, scholars and historical enthusiasts. Anthony Grafton is one of the most celebrated historians writing in English today, and What Was History? is a powerful and imaginative exploration of some central themes in the history of European ideas. (shrink)

We explore the role of episodic imagining in explaining why people both differentially report that it seems to them in experience as though time robustly passes, and why they differentially report that they believe that time does in fact robustly pass. We empirically investigate two hypotheses, the differential vividness hypothesis, and the mental time travel hypothesis. According to each of these, the degree to which people vividly episodically imagine past/future states of affairs influences their tendency to report that it seems (...) to them as though time robustly passes and to judge that time does robustly pass. According to the former, a greater degree of vividness will tend to increase the extent to which people make such reports, while according to the latter, it will tend to decrease the extent to which people make such reports. We found weak evidence in favour of the former hypothesis. We reflect on the implications of this finding for theorising about such reports. (shrink)

In this installment of the Faculty Authors Series, Vance Morgan (Philosophy, Providence College) discusses his newest book, "Freelance Christianity: Philosophy, Faith, and the Real World.".

Matthias Steup (Steup 2008) has recently argued that our doxastic attitudes are free by (i) drawing an analogy with compatibilism about freedom of action and (ii) denying that it is a necessary condition for believing at will that S's having an intention to believe that p can cause S to believe that p . In this paper, however, I argue that the strategies espoused in (i) and (ii) are incompatible.

Recently a great deal of attention has been paid to conflicts of interest in medical research, and the Institute of Medicine has called for more research into this important area. One research question that has not received sufficient attention concerns the mechanisms of action by which conflicts of interest can result in biased and/or flawed research. What discretion do conflicted researchers have to sway the results one way or the other? We address this issue from the perspective of selective inertia, (...) or an unnatural selection of research methods based on which are most likely to establish the preferred conclusions, rather than on which are most valid. In many cases it is abundantly clear that a method that is not being used in practice is superior to the one that is being used in practice, at least from the perspective of validity, and that it is only inertia, as opposed to any serious suggestion that the incumbent method is superior, that keeps the inferior procedure in use, to the exclusion of the superior one. By focusing on these flawed research methods we can go beyond statements of potential harm from real conflicts of interest, and can more directly assess actual harm. (shrink)

Ideal utilitarianism states that the only fundamental requirement of morality is to promote a plurality of intrinsic goods. This paper critically evaluates Hastings Rashdall’s arguments for ideal utilitarianism, while comparing them with G. E. Moore’s arguments. Section I outlines Rashdall’s ethical outlook. Section II considers two different arguments that he provides for its theory of rightness. Section III discusses his defence of a pluralist theory of value. Section IV argues that Rashdall makes a lasting contribution to the defence of ideal (...) utilitarianism. (shrink)

"One of the expected fruits of Descartes' philosophical enterprise is "the highest and most perfect moral system," a system which, organically developed from its metaphysical and physical foundations, will provide the moral agent with direction and purpose in each of life's contingencies. Yet, Descartes' published work contains no such moral system, and commentators have generally agreed that Descartes "has entered the history of philosophy as perhaps the only systematic philosopher of the first rank who failed to provide any methodical treatment (...) of moral problems."" "Through a careful investigation of primarily Descartes' Correspondence and his final treatise, The Passions of the Soul, Vance Morgan here constructs the framework of a working ethical system, consistent with the spirit of Cartesian metaphysics and physics. He finds that while Descartes' metaphysics are remarkable for their insistence on indubitably clear and distinct principles, his ethic is equally remarkable in its conclusion that indubitably certain, inviolable principles are not available in the realm of morals and human activity. Virtue is not defined with reference to the results of one's actions, nor to one's faithful adherence to a set of rationally derived moral directives. Rather, virtue consists in the moral attitude with which one lives one's life, the psychological conviction that one has always resolutely acted upon the best intellectual activity of which one is capable."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

Between the two men there is perhaps little to choose on the point of principle, since Berkeley implicitly justifies the subordination of truth to supposed ...

Vance Kasten; Manipulation and Teaching, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 14, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 53–62, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.1.

Life and works -- Cartesian doubt -- Cogito ergo sum -- Sum res cogitans -- Ideas -- The idea of God -- The ontological argument -- Reason and intuition -- Matter and motion -- Mind and body.

A theory of human origins that is one-half Charles Darwin and one-half Cain and Abel is bound to entail a lot of rethinking of traditional themes. Rene Girard's thesis of original human violence and the Bible's power to reveal it has been around for more than a generation, but its consequences for Christian theology are still only slowly being unpacked. Anthony Bartlett's book makes a signal contribution, representing an astonishing leap forward in understanding what a biblical disclosure of founding (...) violence means for Christian thought and life. If human language arose directly out of the primal experience of murder, then semiotics becomes a core area for theological examination. Tracing the discipline of semiotics through postmodern thinkers, then back through its birth in the Latin era, Bartlett shows how Girard's thought is itself a semiotic emergence, beyond standard Christian metaphysics. Above all, Girardian theory of human signs demands we see the generative impact of violence in our language and thought, and then, conversely, that the Word of God, crucified without retaliation and risen in the same identity, brings a totally new sign and relation into history, offering a thoroughgoing transformation of human life and meaning. (shrink)

"_Weaving the World_ is a well-written and lucid overview of Simone Weil's writings on science and mathematics. This book will be of great benefit for anyone who wishes to pursue Weil's thought in depth." —_Eric O. Springsted, President of the American Weil Society_ "_Weaving the World_ is a detailed account of the philosophy of science and knowledge of Simone Weil. It is a very useful contribution to our understanding of one of the deepest and most incandescent thinkers of the twentieth (...) century." —_Martin Andic, University of Massachusetts, Boston_ This clearly written book introduces readers to Simone Weil’s philosophy of science and mathematics. Weil held that, for the ancient Greeks, the ultimate purpose of science and mathematics was the knowledge and love of the divine. Her creative assimilation of this vision led her to a conception of science and mathematics that connects the human person with not only the physical world but also the spiritual and aesthetic aspects of human existence. Vance Morgan sketches an outline of a metaphysical foundation for mathematics and science that, according to Weil, opens the door to a reinvigorated discussion among science, philosophy, art, and religion. (shrink)

This collection of germinal work in the field by Anthony Weston presents his pragmatic environmental philosophy, calling for reconstruction and imagination rather than deconstruction and analysis. It is a philosopher's invitation to environmental ethics in an unexpectedly inviting and down-to-earth key. On the pragmatic view advanced here, environmental values are thoroughly natural—what else could they be?—and are open-ended and in flux. Rather than passing judgment on the world as it is, we are called to rediscover and remake the world (...) as it might be. We require an environmental etiquette more than a formal ethic; an etiquette whose development must be an ongoing process; and a process in turn that is genuinely multicentric, challenging us to negotiate our place among the exuberant variety of living and other forms. (shrink)

Anthony Barron explores the relationship between the philosophy of Schopenhauer and the forms and themes of Beckett's critical and creative writings. He shows that Beckett's aesthetic preoccupations are consonant with some of Schopenhauer's seminal arguments regarding the arational basis of artistic composition and appreciation and the impotence of reason in human affairs. While Beckett's critical writings are, in places, formidably opaque, this work examines the ways in which such texts can be elucidated when their intertextual affinities with Schopenhauer's arguments (...) are revealed. Using Schopenhauer's thought as a presiding interpretative framework, Barron demonstrates how the widespread presence of philosophical and theological ideas in Beckett's creative texts signifies less about his personal convictions than it does about his authorial aims. He thereby highlights the ways in which discursive ideas were appropriated and manipulated by Beckett for purely literary ends -- Back cover. (shrink)

Short Arguments: Some General Rules Arguments begin by marshaling reasons and organizing them in a clear and fair way. Chapter I offers general rules for ...

Seminal work in moral neuroscience by Joshua Greene and colleagues employed variants of the well-known trolley problems to identify two brain networks which compete with each other to determine moral judgments. Greene interprets the tension between these brain networks using a dual process account which pits deliberative reason against automatic emotion-driven intuitions: reason versus passion. Recent neuroscientific evidence suggests, however, that the critical tension that Greene identifies as playing a role in moral judgment is not so much a tension between (...) reason and passion, but a tension between distinct forms of deliberative reasoning: analytic versus empathetic. In this paper we present results from several new studies supporting this alternative hypothesis. (shrink)

Perception purports to help you gain knowledge of the world even if the world is not the way you expected it to be. Perception also purports to be an independent tribunal against which you can test your beliefs. It is natural to think that in order to serve these and other central functions, perceptual representations must not causally depend on your prior beliefs and expectations. In this paper, I clarify and then argue against the natural thought above. All perceptual systems (...) must solve an under-determination problem: the sensory data they receive could be caused by indefinitely many arrangements of distal objects and properties. Using a Bayesian approach to perceptual processing, I argue that in order to solve the under-determination problem, perceptual capacities must rely on prior beliefs or expectations of some kind. I then argue that perceptual states or processes can help ground knowledge of the world whether the ‘beliefs’ necessary for perceptual processing are encoded as sub-personal states within a perceptual system or cognitive states, such as person-level beliefs. My argument has two main parts. First, I give a preliminary argument that cognitive influence on perception can be appropriate, and I respond to three lines of objection. Second, I argue that cognitively influenced perceptual states can be instances of seeing that p, which makes the relevant states well suited to help ground knowledge that p. I conclude that a cognitively penetrated perceptual state or process can help ground knowledge under some circumstances. (shrink)

This research work examines Heidegger's (1889-1976) contention that phenomenology can inspire, illuminate, motivate, reinforce and guide (human) individual's actions. It achieves this by adapting Heidegger's phenomenological approach to analyze and interpret representative everyday factical experiences of nepotism, selfishness and mass mentality in the (Nigerian) society. Doing this helps to ascertain whether these experiences have any phenomenological link with inauthenticity. Also, it provides a close reading and interpretation of Heidegger's treatment of authentic existence, and explores the possibility of complimenting it with (...) the phenomenology of Commensality, as a mode of care and a way to authenticity. In this manner, it strategically explores possible ways of inspiring individual Daseins to authenticity, and with it engendering a positive transformation of the (Nigerian) society. Presenting and elaborating the phenomenology of Commensality, the work highlights the relationship and the differences between the phenomenology of Commensality and the ontical or sociological understanding of commensality as obtained in African traditional societies. Phenomenology of Commensality argues for the 'renaissance' of Commensality, concretely expressed as Onyenkeanyi, and not just for its 'revival'. The research work further develops the phenomenology of education for Commensality, discussing the possible content and focus of its curriculum, while differentiating it from ethics. The proper implementation of phenomenology of education for Commensality could inspire and illuminate individual Daseins to authenticity, and thereby becomes an improvement strategy for the positive transformation of the (Nigerian) society. As a phenomenology, it is appropriate that the people and places analyzed take on a definite character, which is why the Nigerian society is used. However, it is expected that the implications of the findings presented here will be general and accurate enough to allow application to any number of similar situations. (shrink)

An explanation of the nature of space-time, and how it is incompatible with temporal flow and any dynamical change, including simple motion.

Drawing on and developing the phenomenological work of figures such as Edmund Husserl and Max Scheler, Knowing by Heart details the various feelings and feeling states that pertain to matters of the heart.

In Memoriam for Professor Michael Scriven.

Radial Animal Studies: Beyond Respectability Politics, Opportunism, and Cooptation is a scholar-activist book emerging out of the field of Critical Animal Studies (CAS). Radical Animal Studies (RAS) edited by Anthony J. Nocella II and Kim Socha recognizes and values the goal of total liberation and the importance of underground revolutionary direct action. RAS is a complement to, not in conflict with, CAS. Indeed, RAS is dedicated to two of the 10 CAS principles: seven (total liberation) and nine (radical politics (...) and strategies). This book is an essential read for social justice community organizers, animal liberation activists, and intersectional total liberation scholars. (shrink)

Children are routinely treated paternalistically. There are good reasons for this. Children are quite vulnerable. They are ill-equipped to meet their most basic needs, due, in part, to deficiencies in practical and theoretical reasoning and in executing their wishes. Children’s motivations and perceptions are often not congruent with their best interests. Consequently, raising children involves facilitating their best interests synchronically and diachronically. In practice, this requires caregivers to (in some sense) manage a child’s daily life. If apposite, this management will (...) focus partly on a child’s well-being. To be ably executed, an account of children’s well-being will need to be articulated. This chapter focuses on the nature of children’s well-being. It has five sections. The first section clarifies the focus. The second section examines some hurdles to articulating a view of children’s well-being. The third section evaluates some accounts of children’s well-being. The fourth section addresses the view that children possess features essential to them that make their lives on balance prudentially bad for them. The fifth section sums things up. (shrink)

The radio is a unique and powerful medium, particularly well‐suited for the sharing of ideas and teaching techniques of inquiry through demonstration. In this chapter, the author offers a few short comments on the goals of public philosophy before turning to a broader theoretical analysis of the radio. Walter Benjamin's work from the 1920s and 30s offers particularly illuminating insights into how we experience the medium of the radio. An analysis of his writings about the radio points to many of (...) the practical questions anyone pursuing public philosophy on the radio should consider. The author concludes by noting some important contemporary examples of public philosophy on the radio and a few words about the future of philosophy through radio. (shrink)

How is the Sartrean conception of phenomena of anguish connected to what we currently refer to as phenomena of anxiety? And what is the exact interrelation between anguish, fear, and anxiety?

This article is written by a descendant of enslaved Africans and explores the theological significance of Black bodies. Black bodies have been commodified, controlled and coerced by White hegemony, often lacking agency and self-determination. Using personal experience and contextual analysis, this article, drawing on Black theology inspired reflections, argues that we need to rethink how we conceive of Black bodies ethically, if Black lives are to really matter. The rehabilitation of Black bodies is achieved through a theological reappraisal of holiness (...) and sacraments, underpinned by an embodied pneumatology, in which Black bodies are shown to be sacramental and worthy of mattering in a world underpinned by White supremacy. (shrink)

Thinking as described in Plato’s Sophist undergoes two basic changes: it progresses by shifting from one to many and it regresses by shifting from many to one. The change from one to many is generative; the change from many to one is reductive. These opposing changes provide a tension for thinking, and like Heraclitus’ bow string, this tension gives thinking its efficacy. Thinking would wander and accumulate endlessly unless it regresses from many to one. Yet, thinking would stagnate if it (...) could not progress from one to many. Both changes are essential characteristics of thinking, and both rest on memory. Memory constitutes the foundation of thought. (shrink)

No question, argues theologian Anthony Kelly, is more important than God and our relationship to God (individually and collectively). He explores these issues while integrating science, theology and philosophy. Kelly offers a fresh perspective on Aquinas as an aid to modern spiritual seekers. Trinitarian theology, he suggests, integrates private devotion with our social obligations. Finally, he approaches the Liturgy as a way to collectively explore into God.

In this little volume, Anthony Thiselton makes an impassioned appeal for closer attention to the philosophy of hermeneutics. Emilio Betti provocatively observes that hermeneutics ought to constitute an obligatory course for most degrees in the humanities. Hermeneutics, he insists, teaches patience, tolerance, respect for other views, understanding, and humility, while holding one's own views with firmness and generosity. Yet many teaching institutions do not yet recognize this. With this in mind, Thiselton first considers and responds to those who argue (...) that hermeneutics is not necessary. Then he considers anew more sophisticated thinkers on the subject. Types of texts and hermeneutical models, he argues, are almost infinite, a fact many biblical scholars do not recognize. In the field of biblical hermeneutics, too many view the Bible as one thing, or as a monochrome landscape--it is not. The culmination of Thiselton's case consists in a sustained reflection on the impressive work of Paul Ricoeur, selecting thirteen points of genuine advance his work makes. With a glossary of fifty technical terms this is a volume that will prove helpful to student and scholar alike. (shrink)

The beating of Rodney King and the resulting riots in South Central Los Angeles. The violent clash between Hasidim and African-Americans in Crown Heights. The boats of Haitian refugees being turned away from the Land of Opportunity. These are among the many racially-charged images that have burst across our television screens in the last year alone, images that show that for all our complacent beliefs in a melting-pot society, race is as much of a problem as ever in America. In (...) this vastly important, widely-acclaimed volume, Kwame Anthony Appiah, a Ghanaian philosopher who now teaches at Harvard, explores, in his words, "the possibilities and pitfalls of an African identity in the late twentieth century." In the process he sheds new light on what it means to be an African-American, on the many preconceptions that have muddled discussions of race, Africa, and Afrocentrism since the end of the nineteenth century, and, in the end, to move beyond the idea of race. (shrink)