Though his best-selling novel of school life Eric, or, Little by Little: A Tale of Roslyn School has over the years been the subject of much attention, the wider educational thought and practice of Frederic William Farrar, teacher, novelist, scientist, classicist, theologian, and Dean of Canterbury, has for the most part been neglected by scholars. This paper discusses certain aspects of Farrar the educationist, including his distinctive evangelical attitude toward children; his fervent criticism of the prevailing Classical public school curriculum; (...) his advocacy that much more science be taught; his strong antipathy to corporal and other punishment; his distaste for the increasing athleticism in the public schools; his view of the main purpose of education, namely the inculcation of morality, religious conviction, and intellectual rigor. (shrink)

For years a debate has raged within the various literatures of philosophy, psychiatry, and psychology over whether, and to what degree, the concepts that characterize psychopathology are social constructions that reflect cultural values. While the majority position among philosophers has been normativist, i.e., that the conception of a mental disorder is value-laden, a vocal and cogent minority have argued that psychopathology results from malfunctions that can be described by terminology that is objective and scientific. Scientists and clinicians have tended to (...) endorse the objectivist position, with some notable exceptions. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 4, April 2022.

What can the manifestations of schizophrenia and other mental disorders reveal about classical notions of philosophy such as thought, perception, self, and rationality? Philosophers, psychiatrists, and clinical psychologists got together to compare notes at Harvard in October 1989, and presented these 16 papers. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Doctoral programs at U.S. universities play a critical role in the development of human resources both in the United States and abroad. This volume reports the results of an extensive study of U.S. research-doctorate programs in five broad fields: physical sciences and mathematics, engineering, social and behavioral sciences, biological sciences, and the humanities. Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States documents changes that have taken place in the size, structure, and quality of doctoral education since the widely used 1982 editions. This (...) update provides selected information on nearly 4,000 doctoral programs in 41 subdisciplines at 274 doctorate-granting institutions. This volume also reports the results of the National Survey of Graduate Faculty, which polled a sample of faculty for their views on the scholarly quality of program faculty and the effectiveness of doctoral programs in preparing research scholars/scientists. This much-anticipated update of such an essential reference will be useful to education administrators, university faculty, and students seeking authoritative information on doctoral programs. (shrink)

“Offsetting” habitat destruction has widespread appeal as an instrument for balancing economic growth with biodiversity conservation. Requiring proponents to pay the nontrivial costs of habitat loss encourages sensitive planning approaches. Offsetting, biobanking, and biodiverse carbon sequestration schemes will play an important role in conserving biodiversity under increasing human pressures. However, untenable assumptions in existing schemes are undermining their benefits. Policies that allow habitat destruction to be offset by the protection of existing habitat are guaranteed to result in further loss of (...) biodiversity. Similarly, schemes that allow trading the immediate loss of existing habitat for restoration projects that promise future habitat will, at best, result in time lags in the availability of habitat that increases extinction risks, or at worst, fail to achieve the offset at all. We detail concerns about existing approaches and describe how offsetting and trading policies can be improved to provide genuine benefits for biodiversity. Due to uncertainties about the way in which restored vegetation matures, we propose that the biodiversity bank should be a savings bank. Accrued biodiversity values should be demonstrated before they can be used to offset biodiversity losses. We provide recommendations about how this could be achieved in practice. (shrink)

Investigations into the neurobiology of moral cognition are often done by examining clinical populations characterized by diminished moral emotions and a proclivity toward immoral behavior. Psychopathy is the most common disorder studied for this purpose. Although cocaine abuse is highly co-morbid with psychopathy and cocaine-dependent individuals exhibit many of the same abnormalities in socio-affective processing as psychopaths, this population has received relatively little attention in moral psychology. To address this issue, the authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to record (...) hemodynamic activity in 306 incarcerated male adults, stratified into regular cocaine users (n = 87) and a matched sample of non-cocaine users (n = 87), while viewing pictures that did or did not depict immoral actions and determining whether each depicted scenario occurred indoors or outdoors. Consistent with expectations, cocaine users showed abnormal neural activity in several frontostriatial regions during implicit moral picture processing compared to their non-cocaine using peers. This included reduced moral/non-moral picture discrimination in the vACC, vmPFC, lOFC, and left vSTR. Additionally, psychopathy was negatively correlated with activity in an overlapping region of the ACC and right lateralized vSTR. These results suggest that regular cocaine abuse may lead to affective deficits which can impact relatively high-level processes like moral cognition. Moreover, they add to a growing body of research suggesting an important role for the mesocorticolimbic dopamine pathway in socio-affective processing. (shrink)

In his article, “The Unified Brain-Based Determination of Death Conceptually Justifies Death Determination in DCDD and NRP Protocols,” James Bernat argues that Thoracoabdominal Normothermic Regiona...

Over the course of its six seasons, the Netflix show House of Cards (HOC) details the rise to power of Claire and Frank Underwood in a fictional United States. They achieve power not by winning free and fair elections, but by exploiting various weaknesses of the US political system. Could such a thing happen to our own democracies? This chapter argues that it is a threat that should be taken seriously, as the structure of HOC’s democratic institutions closely mirrors our (...) own, and the flaws that the Underwoods exploit are precisely those that have allowed autocrats to capture democracies “from the inside.” Of even greater concern, these flaws may flow from the nature of democracy itself. This possibility is explored by considering the events of HOC in light of the antidemocratic arguments of Plato and Hobbes. The chapter concludes by briefly considering responses to these arguments. (shrink)

Daly, Brendan A famous case involving the seal of confession was that of Father Francis Douglas. In 1938, a New Zealand Columban priest, Father Francis Douglas was appointed to Pililla, a town near Manila in the Philippines. It was a difficult assignment, made worse by the Japanese occupation of the country in January 1942. In July 1943 he was asked to visit some guerrillas who said that they needed his priestly services. Afterwards, the Japanese then thought he was a (...) spy. He was tortured for 3 days and presumably killed because among other things he would not break the seal of confession. Many regard him as a martyr for being faithful to his priestly obligations. (shrink)

International law enforcement have noted a rise in the use of the Dark Web to facilitate and commit sexual offenses against children, both prior to and since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study presented here therefore aimed to investigate the characteristics and behaviors of anonymous users of Dark Web platforms who were suspected of engaging in the sexual abuse of children. Naturally-occurring data on 53 anonymous suspects, who were active on the Dark Web and had come to police (...) attention in the United Kingdom (UK), were sampled. Analysis of the data yielded 462 features that could be coded reliably. Analysis of these features provided novel insights into suspects’ characteristics, their motivations for using the Dark Web, the nature of the offending behavior they reported engaging in, their technical and security precautions, sexual interests, and the content of their interactions with one another. Findings are discussed in relation to theoretical and practical implications, as well as directions for future research. (shrink)

The collection of very large text sources has revolutionized the study of natural language, leading to the development of several models of language learning and distributional semantics that extract sophisticated semantic representations of words based on the statistical redundancies contained within natural language. The models treat knowledge as an interaction of processing mechanisms and the structure of language experience. But language experience is often treated agnostically. We report a distributional semantic analysis that shows written language in fiction books varies appreciably (...) between books from the different genres, books from the same genre, and even books written by the same author. Given that current theories assume that word knowledge reflects an interaction between processing mechanisms and the language environment, the analysis shows the need for the field to engage in a more deliberate consideration and curation of the corpora used in computational studies of natural language processing. (shrink)

English mass noun phrases & count noun phrases differ only minimally grammatically. The basis for the difference is ascribed to a difference in the features +/-CT. These features serve the morphosyntactic function of determining the available options for the assigment of grammatical number, itself determined by the features +/-PL: +CT places no restriction on the available options, while -CT, in the unmarked case, restricts the available options to -PL. They also serve the semantic function of determining the sort of denotation (...) associated with demonstrative & quantified noun phrases. The feature -CT requires that the associated denotation be the set whose sole member is the greatest aggregate of which the noun phrase or noun is true; the feature +CT requires that the associated denotation be the set whose members are all & only those minimal aggregates of which the noun phrase or noun is true. At the same time, neither mass NPs nor count NPs that are arguments of a predicate have their predicate evaluated with respect to their denotations. Rather, the predicate is evaluated with respect to an aggregation, a set of aggregates constructed from the denotation of the noun phrase that is an argument of the predicate. 3 Tables, 4 Figures, 74 References. AA. (shrink)

Weiss, Propen, and Reid gather a diverse group of scholars to analyze the growing obsolescence of the human-object dichotomy in today's world. In doing so, Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman brings together diverse disciplines to foster a dialog on significant technological issues pertinent to philosophy, rhetoric, aesthetics, and science.

This is a guide to writing philosophy papers aimed at introductory students prepared by the philosophy faculty at Rochester Community and Technical College. It includes sections on reading philosophy and writing philosophy, as well as an explanation of common grading criteria for essays in philosophy.

Questions about the nature of the relationship between language and extralinguistic cognition are old, but only recently has a new view emerged that allows for the systematic investigation of claims about linguistic structure, based on how it is understood or utilized outside of the language system. Our paper represents a case study for this interaction in the domain of event semantics. We adopt a transparency thesis about the relationship between linguistic structure and extralinguistic cognition, investigating whether different lexico-syntactic structures can (...) differentially recruit the visual causal percept. A prominent analysis of causative verbs like move suggests reference to two distinct events and a causal relationship between them, whereas non-causative verbs like push do not so refer. In our study, we present English speakers with simple scenes that either do or do not support the perception of a causal link, and manipulate (between subjects) a one-sentence instruction for the evaluation of the scene. Preliminary results suggest that competent speakers of English are more likely to judge causative constructions than non-causative constructions as true of a scene where causal features are present in the scene. Implications for a new approach to the investigation of linguistic meanings and future directions are discussed. (shrink)

Burt's argument relies on a motte-and-bailey fallacy. Burt aims to argue against the value of genetics for social science; instead she argues against certain interpretations of a specific kind of genetics tool, polygenic scores (PGSs). The limitations, previously identified by behavioural geneticists including ourselves, do not negate the value of PGSs, let alone genetics in general, for social science.

In the 2016 film Doctor Strange, the title character undergoes a radical transition from successful neurosurgeon to highly skilled sorcerer. Unsurprisingly, he finds this transition difficult, in no small part because he thinks that sorcery seems somehow “unscientific.” Nevertheless, he eventually comes to adopt sorcery as wholeheartedly as he had embraced medicine. Some of his reasons for making this transition are personal, such as his desire to fix his injured hands and, later, to help others. Strange also displays the same (...) sorts of motivations that might drive any scientist: his intellectual curiosity drives him to understand how the Ancient One cured a paraplegic, and his desire to make a positive difference leads him to push the boundaries of sorcery. -/- This chapter will examine what Strange’s transition can teach us about the nature of scientific inquiry. More specifically, we’ll think about when it might make sense for scientists like Dr. Strange to change their approach. This will also allow us to explore what it means to practice science more generally. Some of what we learn might be surprising. For example, while it might seem obvious to us (and maybe even to Strange) that sorcery can’t count as a science, there are reasons for doubting this quick conclusion, at least in the sort of world that Dr. Strange lives in. Finally, we’ll consider what all of this means for science in our world, where things differ quite significantly. (shrink)

This paper explores relationships between environment and education after the Covid-19 pandemic through the lens of philosophy of education in a new key developed by Michael Peters and the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia. The paper is collectively written by 15 authors who responded to the question: Who remembers Greta Thunberg? Their answers are classified into four main themes and corresponding sections. The first section, ‘As we bake the earth, let's try and bake it from scratch’, gathers wider philosophical (...) considerations about the intersection between environment, education, and the pandemic. The second section, ‘Bump in the road or a catalyst for structural change?’, looks more closely into issues pertaining to education. The third section, ‘If you choose to fail us, we will never forgive you’, focuses to Greta Thunberg’s messages and their responses. The last section, ‘Towards a new normal’, explores future scenarios and develops recommendations for critical emancipatory action. The concluding part brings these insights together, showing that resulting synergy between the answers offers much more then the sum of articles’ parts. With its ethos of collectivity, interconnectedness, and solidarity, philosophy of education in a new key is a crucial tool for development of post-pandemic education. (shrink)

To the general reader and watcher of television programmes medical ethics may appear to be something new. This is not so, for hundreds of articles and many books have appeared over the last 10 years or so to discuss and analyse the problems arising from the practice of medicine. In this study of two larger works - Medical Ethics and Manipulation - both by Bernard Häring, a Roman Catholic theologian - Father Brendan Soane analyses these in some detail and (...) sets their ideas in the context of what has already been written on the major issues of medical ethics and what is likely to be foremost in discussion in the near future. Many readers of this Journal already have the particular background of knowledge to see the problems in medicine which are in fact ethical but the general reader may require help and enlightenment and this is now provided for a special field within the field. (shrink)

Brendan Wilson leads the reader through Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, revealing a new clarity, singleness of purpose and contemporary relevance in this acknowledged masterpiece.

What accounts for the capacity of ordinary speakers to comprehend utterances of their language? The phenomenology of hearing speech in one’s own language makes it tempting to many epistemologists to look to perception for an answer to this question. That is, just as a visual experience as of a red square is often taken to give the perceiver immediate justification for believing that there is a red square in front of her, perhaps an auditory experience as of the speaker asserting (...) that p gives the competent hearer immediate justification for believing that the speaker has asserted that p. My aim here is to offer reasons for resisting this temptation. I argue that the perceptual model cannot adequately account for the hearer’s justification in many cases. The arguments here also allow us to draw certain further morals about the role of phenomenology in the epistemology of perception. (shrink)

This paper argues that promises are proposals in joint practical deliberation, the activity of deciding together what to do. More precisely: to promise to ϕ is to propose (in a particular way) to decide together with your addressee(s) that you will ϕ. I defend this deliberative theory by showing that the activity of joint practical deliberation naturally gives rise to a speech act with exactly the same properties as promises. A certain kind of proposal to make a joint decision regarding (...) one's own actions turns out to have the very same normative effects, under the very same conditions, as a promise. I submit that this cannot be a coincidence: we should conclude that promises and the relevant kind of proposals in joint practical deliberation are one and the same. (shrink)

While Richard Joyce’s moral skepticism might seem to be an extreme metaethical view, it is actually far more moderate than it might first appear. By articulating four challenges facing his approach to moral skepticism, I argue that Joyce’s moderation is, in fact, a theoretical liability. First, the fact that Joyce is not skeptical about normativity in general makes it possible to develop close approximations to morality, lending support to moderate moral revisionism over moral error theory. Second, Joyce relies on strong, (...) contentious conceptual and empirical claims in support of his views. Third, Joyce’s evolutionary debunking argument threatens to backfire, generalizing to all normative judgments. Finally, Joyce fails to offer an adequate account of the normativity of desire. Each of these four challenges can be either sidestepped or embraced by radicalizing and defending a global form of normative skepticism. There are thus several ways in which global normative skepticism appears to be in a more robust dialectical position than Joyce’s moral skepticism. Furthermore, I argue, Joyce’s arguments against global normative skepticism are unconvincing. While this discussion is framed in terms of Joyce’s work, its arguments will apply to other moral skeptics who are not also global normative skeptics. The result is an invitation for Joyce and other moral skeptics to leave these problems behind and join the radical camp. (shrink)

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) makes use of explicit procedures for grading evidence for causal claims. Normally, these procedures categorise evidence of correlation produced by statistical trials as better evidence for a causal claim than evidence of mechanisms produced by other methods. We argue, in contrast, that evidence of mechanisms needs to be viewed as complementary to, rather than inferior to, evidence of correlation. In this paper we first set out the case for treating evidence of mechanisms alongside evidence of correlation in (...) explicit protocols for evaluating evidence. Next we provide case studies which exemplify the ways in which evidence of mechanisms complements evidence of correlation in practice. Finally, we put forward some general considerations as to how the two sorts of evidence can be more closely integrated by EBM. (shrink)