Neuroscientists are searching for the engram within the conceptual framework established by John Locke's theory of mind. This framework was elaborated before the development of information theory, before the development of information processing machines and the science of computation, before the discovery that molecules carry hereditary information, before the discovery of the codon code and the molecular machinery for editing the messages written in this code and translating it into transcription factors that mark abstract features of organic structure such as (...) anterior and distal. The search for the engram needs to abandon Locke's conceptual framework and work within a framework informed by these developments. The engram is the medium by which information extracted from past experience is transmitted to the computations that inform future behavior. The information-conveying symbols in the engram are rapidly generated in the course of computations, which implies that they are molecules. (shrink)

This paper explores the truism that people think about what they say. It proposes that, to satisfy their own goals, people often plan their speech acts to affect their listeners' beliefs, goals, and emotional states. Such language use can be modelled by viewing speech acts as operators in a planning system, thus allowing both physical and speech acts to be integrated into plans. Methodological issues of how speech acts should be defined in a planbased theory are illustrated by defining operators (...) for requesting and informing. Plans containing those operators are presented and comparisons are drawn with Searle's formulation. The operators are shown to be inadequate since they cannot be composed to form questions (requests to inform) and multiparty requests (requests to request). By refining the operator definitions and by identifying some of the side effects of requesting, compositional adequacy is achieved.The solution leads to a metatheoretical principle for modelling speech acts as planning operators. (shrink)

A robust result in research on the production of grammatical agreement is that speakers are more likely to produce an erroneous verb with phrases such as the key to the cabinets, with a singular noun followed by a plural one, than with phrases such as the keys to the cabinet, where a plural noun is followed by a singular. These asymmetries are thought to reflect core language production processes. Previous accounts have attributed error patterns to a syntactic number feature present (...) on plurals but not singulars. An alternative approach is presented in which a process similar to structural priming contributes to the error asymmetry via speakers' past experiences with related agreement constructions. A corpus analysis and two agreement production studies test this account. The results suggest that agreement production is shaped by statistical learning from past language experience. Implications for accounts of agreement are discussed. (shrink)

Alchemy is central to Jung's hypothesis of the collective unconscious. In this volume he begins with an outline of the process and aims of psychotherapy, and then moves on to work out the analogies between alchemy, Christian dogma and symbolism and his own understanding of the analytic process. Introducing the basic concepts of alchemy, Jung reminds us of the dual nature of alchemy, comprising both the chemical process and a parallel mystical component. He also discusses the seemingly deliberate mystification of (...) the alchemists. Finally, in using the alchemical process as providing insights into individuation, Jung emphasises the importance of alchemy in relating to us the transcendent nature of the psyche. (shrink)

A comparison is made between the Bohm trajectory and Feynman path approaches to the long-standing problem of determining the average lime taken for a particle described by the Schrödinger wave function ψ to tunnel through a potential barrier. The former approach follows simply and uniquely from the basic postulates of Bohm's causal interpretation of quantum mechanics; the latter is intimately related to the most frequently cited approaches based on conventional interpretations. Emphasis is given to the fact that fundamentally different transmission (...) (T)-reflection (R) decompositions, particlelike and wavelike respectively, are central to the two methods: ¦ψ¦2=[¦ψ¦2]T+[¦ψ¦2]R (Bohm trajectory approach); ψ=ψT+ψR (Feynman path approach). (shrink)

Error is protean, ubiquitous and crucial in scientific process. In this paper it is argued that understanding scientific process requires what is currently absent: an adaptable, context-sensitive functional role for error in science that naturally harnesses error identification and avoidance to positive, success-driven, science. This paper develops a new account of scientific process of this sort, error and success driving Self-Directed Anticipative Learning (SDAL) cycling, using a recent re-analysis of ape-language research as test example. The example shows the limitations of (...) other accounts of error, in particular Mayo’s (Error and the growth of experimental knowledge, 1996) error-statistical approach, and SDAL cycling shows how they can be fruitfully contextualised. (shrink)

Description: This book proposes to examine the central doctrines of Wittgenstein's Tractatus from a transcendental point of view. The book brings Wittgenstein's thought closer to that of the Vedanta by showing that Wittgenstein echoes the Vedantic idea that the ultimate reality is beyond language and intellect.

Objective: To evaluate feasibility of the guidelines of the Groupe Francophone de Réanimation et Urgence Pédiatriques for limitation of treatments in the paediatric intensive care unit .Design: A 2-year prospective survey.Setting: A 12-bed PICU at the Hôpital Jeanne de Flandre, Lille, France.Patients: Were included when limitation of treatments was expected.Results: Of 967 children admitted, 55 were included with a 2-day median delay. They were younger than others , had a higher paediatric risk of mortality score , and a higher paediatric (...) overall performance category score at admission ; all p<0.002. 34 children died. A limitation decision was made without meeting for 7 children who died: 6 received do-not-resuscitate orders and 1 received withholding decision. Decision-making meetings were organised for 31 children, and the following decisions were made: 12 DNROs , 4 withholding , with 14 withdrawing and 1 continuing treatment . After limitation, 21 children died and 10 survived . 13 procedures were interrupted because of death and 11 because of clinical improvement . Parents’ opinions were obtained after 4 family conferences , 3 days after inclusion. The first meeting was planned for 6 days after inclusion and held on the 7th day after inclusion; 80% of parents were immediately informed of the decision, which was implemented after half a day.Conclusions: GFRUPs procedure was applicable in most cases. The main difficulties were anticipating the correct date for the meeting and involving nurses in the procedure. Children for whom the procedure was interrupted because of clinical improvement and who survived in poor condition without a formal decision pointed out the need for medical criteria for questioning, which should systematically lead to a formal decision-making process. (shrink)

Recent reports published by the United Nations and the World Health Organization suggest that the brain drain of healthcare professionals from the developing to the developed world is decimating the provision of healthcare in poor countries. The migration of these key workers is driven by a combination of economic inequalities and the recruitment policies of governments in the rich world. This article assesses the impact of the healthcare brain drain and argues that wealthy countries have a moral obligation to reduce (...) the flow of healthcare workers from the developing to the developed world. (shrink)

This paper discusses the debate over whether emotional expressions are spontaneous or intentional actions. We describe a variety of empirical evidence supporting these two possibilities. But we argue that the spontaneous-intentional distinction fails to explain the psychological dynamics of emotional expressions. We claim that a complex systems perspective on intentions, as self-organized critical states, may yield a unified view of emotional expressions as a consequence of situated action. This account simultaneously acknowledges the embodied status of environment, evolution, culture and mind (...) in theories of emotion. (shrink)

Professor Geoffrey Lewis Lewis was a pioneer in Turkish Studies in Britain and an internationally admired scholar in the field. In considering the body of his work as a whole, two consistent themes emerge, two driving forces behind it: first, a deep, continuing fascination with language, and now especially with Turkish; and second, a rooted and constantly developing love of Turkey and its people and a concomitant desire to bring its language, history, and culture to the attention of the English-speaking (...) world by a variety of means, all of them grounded in a thorough scholarly engagement with his subject. (shrink)

Description: The book presents a systematic view of the landmark developments in analytic philosophy in the twentieth century. It highlights the development of the concepts such as language, meaning, truth, reference, necessity, analyticity, etc. which have been central to analytic philosophy. The book consists of four parts, namely: Part I The Linguistic Revolution; Part II The Logic of Language; Part III The Primacy of the Semantical and Part IV Language, Mind and Metaphysics. Part I discusses the nature of the linguistic (...) revolution and the analytic method. Part II presents a panoramic view of the fall of formal language philosophy and the rise of the ordinary language philosophy in the west. Part III brings out the semantic issues like the problems of truth, meaning, reference, etc. Part IV attempts to discuss the nature of language-reality relationship, the nature of mental representations and the concept of mind and also the metaphysical issues of realism and anti-realism. Finally, it brings out the metaphysics of freedom, value and reason. The author has attempted to bring out the issues of analytic philosophy in a systematic and coherent fashion. Analytic philosophy, in spite of the appearances to the contrary, is a systematic philosophy with a built-in metaphysics of man and the universe. The book will be of interest to the general students of philosophy as well as the specialists in philosophy working in the areas of philosophy of language and meaning. (shrink)

El artículo aborda los conceptos de multiculturalidad, interculturalidad y educación intercultural, como perspectivas teóricas que permiten explicar la dinámica intercultural de la acción educativa y como desafío epistemológico de los conocimientos indígenas en la escolarización. Para ello se realiza un análisis de los elementos teóricos que sustentan estos conceptos; se problematiza la dificultad epistemológica de la educación intercultural, considerando el contexto en que se lleva a cabo, y en consecuencia, se plantea que la dinámica de estos conceptos permite la posibilidad (...) de considerar la interculturalidad tanto para la formación como para la problematización de situaciones interculturales que están en proceso de investigación. This article addresses the concepts of multiculturalism, interculturalism and intercultural education as theoretical perspectives to explain the intercultural dynamic of educational activities, and as epistemological challenges to indigenous knowledge in the school context. To examine these concepts we analyze the theoretical foundations which underlie them. We then formulate the epistemological problem of intercultural education, considering the context in which it takes place. Consequently, we argue that it is the dynamic of these concepts which makes it possible to consider interculturalism both in education and in the formulation of the questions posed by the intercultural situations under investigation. (shrink)

Recent research on the relations of personality to well-being shows that the people who are most healthy, happy and fulfilled are those who are high in all three of the character traits of self-directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence as measured by the Temperament and Character Inventory. In the past, the healthy personality has often been considered to require only high self-directedness and high cooperativeness. However, now the self-centred behaviour of people who are low in self-transcendence is degrading the conditions needed for (...) sustainable life by all human beings. Consequently, human beings need to and can develop their capacity for self-transcendence in order to maintain their individual and collective well-being. (shrink)

Mole's (2008 [this issue]) argument that consciousness is a necessary concomitant of attention rests on the question of what is being attended in spatial attention. His answer is space. Some authors, including ourselves, claim that the fact that the processing of unseen objects can be modulated by spatial attention (e.g. Kentridge et al., 1999; 2004; 2008; Marzouki et al., 2007; Sumner et al., 2006) demonstrates that visual attention is not a sufficient precondition for visual awareness. Mole, however, contends that as (...) space, rather than any object that might occupy that space, is what is being attended, these experiments do not constitute evidence for a dissociation between attention and consciousness. We disagree. To understand the source of this disagreement we need to understand the various processes encompassed by the term 'attention' and to consider experimental evidence illustrating how these processes operate. We review evidence that spatial attention can be deployed with the specific goal of determining the properties of objects occupying the attended region of space. One might, for example, attend to a location with the goal of determining the colour of objects occupying that space as efficiently as possible. Mole's assumption that all that is attended in spatial attention is space is not consistent with this evidence. We conclude that attention can be directed at objects by mechanisms of so- called 'spatial attention' without those objects necessarily eliciting conscious visual experience and hence that attention is not a sufficient precondition for visual awareness. (shrink)

There is an undeniable tendency to dismiss women’s sexual assault allegations out of hand. However, this tendency is not monolithic—allegations that black men have raped white women are often met with deadly seriousness. I argue that contemporary rape culture is characterized by the interplay between rape myths that minimize rape, and myths that catastrophize rape. Together, these two sets of rape myths distort the epistemic resources that people use when assessing rape allegations. These distortions result in the unjust exoneration of (...) people we cannot conceive of as monstrous, while making it too easy to believe that some marginalized people could be rapists. I also argue that rape myths enable a novel kind of epistemic injustice. This injustice concerns how our assessments of trustworthiness and our assessments of plausibility interact. I argue that rape myths can result in runaway credibility deflations that can explain both why people fail to believe most women, and also why people may unjustly believe false allegations that white women have been raped by black men. (shrink)

The Mental Capacity Act 2005 gives statutory force to the common law principle that all adults are assumed to have capacity to make decisions unless proven otherwise. In accord with best practice, this principle places the evidential burden on researchers rather than participants and requires researchers to take account of short-term and transient understandings common among some research populations. The aim of this paper is to explore some of the implications of the MCA 2005 for researchers working with 'vulnerable' populations (...) in health and social care settings. The Cyclical Consent Model is described and offered as a process by which researchers might develop good practice when engaged in research involving vulnerable people. (shrink)

Cass Sunstein and Martha Nussbaum bring together an all-star cast of contributors to explore the legal and political issues that underlie the campaign for animal rights and the opposition to it. Addressing ethical questions about ownership, protection against unjustified suffering, and the ability of animals to make their own choices free from human control, the authors offer numerous different perspectives on animal rights and animal welfare. They show that whatever one's ultimate conclusions, the relationship between human beings and nonhuman animals (...) is being fundamentally rethought. This book offers a state-of-the-art treatment of that rethinking. (shrink)

There is much scholarly disagreement with regard to the program of the Enlightenment. Something in the vicinity of agreement is achievable provided one remains suitably vague. I intend to take advantage of that. One item that seems to me characteristic of the Enlightenment is the general (and admittedly, vague) idea that human reason is the ultimate arbiter in all matters concerning warranted human belief—matters of religion included. And I have no doubt that Leibniz’s philosophizing properly understood, contributes to that general (...) idea. In what follows, I concentrate on some aspects of Leibniz’s thinking that seem to me especially relevant to this theme. (shrink)