_Curriculum and Learning for Climate Action_ offers researchers, practitioners, donors, and decisionmakers insights into entry points for education systems change needed to reorient human society’s relationship with our planetary systems.

Widows, women, and the bioethics of care must be understood within an authentic Christian ontology of gender. Men are men and women are women, and their being is ontologically marked in difference. There is an ontology of gender with important implications for the role of women in the family and the Church. The Christian Church has traditionally recognized a role for widows, deaconesses, and female monastics, which is not that of the liturgical priesthood, but one with a special relationship to (...) care and therefore with particular implications for health care and a Christian bioethics of care in the twenty-first century. In the shadow of early male mortality, women as wives should turn to support their husbands and as widows to support those in need. Widows, in becoming authentic Christian monastics, can bring into the world an icon of rightly ordered women providing rightly ordered Christian care for those in need. They can enter the moral vacuum created by misunderstandings of the place of women and the service vacuum created by a disappearance of religious nuns in Western health care facilities with a presence that is at one with the Church of the Fathers. (shrink)

BackgroundThe sustained rise in negative mental health reports among university students is a source of continued global concern, and investigation continues into potential contributors to this rise. This includes the increased prevalence of risky sexual behaviors. Related is the increased prevalence of pornography use. Our study sought to explore the potential relationship between compulsive use of pornography and mental health in university students.MethodsOur sample consisted of university students from Franciscan University of Steubenville, Steubenville, Ohio. An anonymous survey was sent to (...) all students at the university over the age of 18. The survey was comprised of the following: demographic questions, questions on pornography use and perception, a modified version of the Compulsive Internet Use Scale assessing various factors associated with compulsive internet pornography use, questions assessing emotional and sexual states relative to pornography use, and the 21-question version of the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale.ResultsOur results indicate that 56.6% of those surveyed reported lifetime pornography use, with a significantly higher proportion of males than females reporting such use. The majority of students reported accessing pornography through internet-related technologies. Additionally, 17.0, 20.4, and 13.5% of students reported severe or extremely severe levels of depression, anxiety and stress, respectively, with compulsive pornography use significantly affecting all three mental health parameters in both sexes. Exploratory Factor Analysis identified three factors suggesting emotional coping, dependence and preoccupation for the mCIUS items and three factors reflecting interoceptive, impotent, and extrinsic characteristics for the EmSS items. Regression analysis indicated that various demographics, items pertaining to reduced control and social impairment, and other variables pertaining to pornography use predicted mental health outcomes. Faith, morals and personal motivation were the primary variables reported to help reduce pornography use.ConclusionOur analyses indicate a significant relationship between mental health and pornography use, including behaviors reflecting behavioral addictions, highlighting the necessity for a better understanding and consideration of the potential contribution of internet pornography to negative mental health among university students. (shrink)

In this paper, we will argue that, of the various grammatical and discourse constraints that affect acceptability in Verb Phrase Ellipsis (VPE), only the structural parallelism constraint is unique to VPE. We outline (previously noted) systematic problems that arise for classical structural accounts of VPE resolution, and discuss efforts in recent research on VPE to reduce explanations of acceptability in VPE to general well-formedness constraints at the level of information structure [e.g. Kehler, 2000, 2002, Kertz, 2013, Kehler, 2015]. In two (...) magnitude estimation experiments, we show that — in line with Kehler’s predictions — degradation due to structural mismatch is modulated by coherence relation. On the other hand, we consistently find residual structural mismatch effects, suggesting that the interpretation of VPE is sensitive to structural features of the VPE antecedent. We propose that a structural constraint licenses VPE, but that sentences violating this constraint can nevertheless be interpreted. The variability in acceptability is accounted for not by additional constraints on VPE in the grammar, but by the numerous general biases that affect sentence and discourse well-formedness, such as information structural constraints [as proposed by Kertz, 2013], discourse coherence relations Kehler [2000], sensitivity to Question Under Discussion structure [e.g. Ginzburg and Sag, 2000, Kehler, 2015], and thematic role bias at the lexical level [e.g. McRae et al., 1998]. We test the prediction that thematic role bias (Experiment 3) and QUD structure (Experiment 4) will influence both elliptical and non-elliptical sentences alike, while structural mismatch continues to degrade elliptical sentences alone. Our proposal differs from existing proposals in cutting the explanatory pie in a different way with respect to how variations in acceptability are accounted for. We suggest that degradation can result from at least two distinct and separable sources: violating construction-specific grammatical constraints, or from complexity differences in interpretation related to very general discourse level information. (shrink)

The branch of evolutionary theory known as signaling theory attempts to explain various forms of communication. Social scientists have explained many traditional rituals as forms of communication that promote cooperative social relationships among participants. Both evolutionists and social scientists have realized the importance of trust for the formation and maintenance of cooperative social relationships. These factors have led to attempts to apply signaling theory to traditional cultural rituals in various ways. This paper uses the traditional ritual of mumming in small (...) Newfoundland fishing villages to evaluate alternative hypotheses about the connection between rituals, communication, trust, and cooperation. Mumming is found to be most consistent with the hypothesis that it is a ritual of trust wherein participants take a specific type of risk: the risk of harm at the hands of other participants. Individuals who take this risk actively signal their trust. Conversely, individuals who restrain themselves from inflicting harm on other participants actively signal their trustworthiness. (shrink)

The contemporary operating environment for deployed United States military operations largely focuses on deployments to predominantly Islamic countries. The differences in cultural values between d...

In recent years, most political theorists have agreed that shame shouldn't play any role in democratic politics because it threatens the mutual respect necessary for participation and deliberation. But Christina Tarnopolsky argues that not every kind of shame hurts democracy. In fact, she makes a powerful case that there is a form of shame essential to any critical, moderate, and self-reflexive democratic practice. Through a careful study of Plato's Gorgias, Tarnopolsky shows that contemporary conceptions of shame are far too (...) narrow. For Plato, three kinds of shame and shaming practices were possible in democracies, and only one of these is similar to the form condemned by contemporary thinkers. Following Plato, Tarnopolsky develops an account of a different kind of shame, which she calls "respectful shame." This practice involves the painful but beneficial shaming of one's fellow citizens as part of the ongoing process of collective deliberation. And, as Tarnopolsky argues, this type of shame is just as important to contemporary democracy as it was to its ancient form. Tarnopolsky also challenges the view that the Gorgias inaugurates the problematic oppositions between emotion and reason, and rhetoric and philosophy. Instead, she shows that, for Plato, rationality and emotion belong together, and she argues that political science and democratic theory are impoverished when they relegate the study of emotions such as shame to other disciplines. (shrink)

Presents a plethora of approaches to developing human potential in areas not conventionally addressed. Organized in two parts, this international collection of essays provides viable educational alternatives to those currently holding sway in an era of high-stakes accountability.

A unique take on death and bereavement without a belief in God or an afterlife Accepting death is never easy, but we don't need religion to find peace, comfort, and solace in the face of death. In this inspiring and life-affirming collection of short essays, prominent atheist author Greta Christina offers secular ways to handle your own mortality and the death of those you love.

Increasingly, it is accepted wisdom for agricultural scientists to get feedback from indigenous peoples—peasants—about new improved seeds and biotechnologies before their official release from the experiment station. What is not yet accepted wisdom is the importance of cognitive science to research on farmer decision making, especially of the type “Why don't they adopt.” In this paper, the impact of the cognitive revolution on models of farmer decision making is described, and decision making models before and after the cognitive revolution are (...) contrasted. An example of a decision model after the cognitive revolution is given by the Malawi farmer's decision whether to use chemical fertilizers or organic fertilizers or both. Results of testing the model show that in Malawi, smallholders' lack of capital and credit are more important factors constraining use of chemical fertilizers than are indigenous beliefs in organic fertilizers or fears of a future dependency on chemicals. (shrink)

The 13th-15th centuries were witness to lively and broad-ranging debates about the nature of persons. In this paper, I look at how the uses of ‘person’ in logical/grammatical, legal/political, and theological contexts overlap in the works of 13th-15th century contemplatives in the Latin West, such as Hadewijch, Meister Eckhart, and Catherine of Siena. After explicating the key concepts of individuality, dignity, and rationality, I show how these ideas combine with the contemplative use of first- and second-person perspectives, personification, and introspection (...) to yield a concept of 'person' that both prefigures Locke's classic 17th century definition and deeply influences the development of personalism. (shrink)

Let $T$ be a theory in a countable fragment of $\mathcal{L}_{\omega_{1},\omega}$ whose extensions in countable fragments have only countably many types. Sacks proves a bounding theorem that generates models of high Scott rank. For this theorem, a tree hierarchy is developed for $T$ that enumerates these extensions. In this paper, we effectively construct a predecessor function for formulas defining types in this tree hierarchy as follows. Let $T_{\gamma}\subseteq T_{\delta}$ with $T_{\gamma}$- and $T_{\delta}$-theories on level $\gamma$ and $\delta$, respectively. Then if (...) $\ulcorner p\urcorner $ is a formula that defines a type for $T_{\delta}$, our predecessor function provides a formula for defining its subtype in $T_{\gamma}$. By constructing this predecessor function, we weaken an assumption for Sacks’s result. (shrink)

English summary: It seems that reason is less a universal principle than something inherently bound to the contexts in which it appears. These contributions to a conference held on the occasion of Christoph Schwobel's 60th birthday explore the character of reason's manifold contexts: the grounding of reason in the inner word of God 's Trinitarian life as well as the disclosure of reason and and its limits in human conversation. German description: Vernunft scheint in der Gegenwart weniger ein allgemeines Prinzip (...) als eine in Kontexte eingebundene Grosse zu sein. Die Beitrage einer Tagung anlasslich von Christoph Schwobels 60. Geburtstag, gehen der Frage nach dem Charakter dieser Kontextbindung nach: der Begrundung der Vernunft im trinitarischen Gesprach wie der Erschliessung und Problematisierung der Vernunft im menschlichen Gesprach. Mit Beitragen von V. Brummer, G. van den Brink, C. Drobe, H. J. Eckstein, D.-M. Grube, J. Halfwassen, S. Heine, F. Hermanni, E. Herms, W. Harle, W. Homolka, W. Jeanrond, R. W. Jenson, D. Kelsey, A. F. Koch, A. Kupsch, V. Leppin, P.-C. Lai, P. Lo, A. Min, J. Moltmann, M. Muhling, P. Peterson, M. Sarot, F. Schweitzer, A. Torrance, J. Webster, M. Welker, M. Wendte, M. Wisse, H. Wisskirchen und L. Zak. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to explore the relational aspects of the consent process for HPV vaccination as experienced by school nurses, based on the assumption that individuals have interests related to persons close to them, which is not necessarily to be apprehended as a restriction of autonomy; rather as a voluntary and emotionally preferred involvement of their close ones. Thirty Swedish school nurses were interviewed in five focus groups, before the school based vaccination program had started in Sweden. (...) The empirical results were discussed in light of theories on relational autonomy. The school nurses were convinced that parental consent was needed for HPV vaccination of 11-year-old girls, but problems identified were the difficulty to judge when a young person is to be regarded as autonomous and what to do when children and parents do not agree on the decision. A solution suggested was that obtaining informed consent in school nursing is to be seen as a deliberative process, including the child, the parents and the nurse. The nurses described how they were willing strive for a dialogue with the parents and negotiate with them in the consent process. Seeing autonomy as relational might allow for a more dialogical approach towards how consent is obtained in school based vaccination programs. Through such an approach, conflicts of interests can be made visible and become possible to deal with in a negotiating dialogue. If the school nurses do not focus exclusively on accepting the individual parent’s choice, but strive to engage in a process of communication and deliberation, the autonomy of the child might increase and power inequalities might be reduced. (shrink)

Why can't we own people? Boyer proposes that the key consideration concerns inclusion in the moral circle. I propose an alternative, which is that specific mental capacities, especially the capacity for autonomy, play a key role in determining judgments about human and animal ownership. Autonomous beings are viewed as owning themselves, which precludes them from being owned by others.

This wide ranging and challenging book explores the relationship between subjectivity and mortality as it is understood by a number of twentieth-century French philosophers including Sartre, Lacan, Levinas and Derrida. Making intricate and sometimes unexpected connections, Christina Howells draws together the work of prominent thinkers from the fields of phenomenology and existentialism, religious thought, psychoanalysis, and deconstruction, focussing in particular on the relations between body and soul, love and death, desire and passion. From Aristotle through to contemporary analytic philosophy (...) and neuroscience the relationship between mind and body has been persistently recalcitrant to analysis, and emotion is the locus where the explanatory gap is most keenly identified. This problematic forms the broad backdrop to the work’s primary focus on contemporary French philosophy and its attempts to understand the intimate relationship between subjectivity and mortality, in the light not only of the ‘death’ of the classical subject but also of the very real frailty of the subject as it lives on, finite, desiring, embodied, open to alterity and always incomplete. Ultimately Howells identifies this vulnerability and finitude as the paradoxical strength of the mortal subject and as what permits its transcendence. Subtle, beautifully written, and cogently argued, this book will be invaluable for students and scholars interested in contemporary theories of subjectivity, as well as for readers intrigued by the perennial connections between love and death. (shrink)

Kitāb Shifāʾ al-asqām al-ʿāriḍa fī l-ẓāhir wa-l-bāṭin min al-ajsām li-l shaykh sayyid Aḥmad b. ʿUmar al-Raqqādī al-Kuntī. Edited by Floréal Sanagustin. VECMAS. 3 vols. Lyons: ENS Éditions, 2011. Pp. v + 167 ; v + 147 ; iv + 133.

'Wessen Wissen?' ist einerseits eine Frage nach Akteur-innen, Körpern, Materialien und Technologien, die in künstlerischen Produktions- und Wissensprozessen miteinander interagieren. Diese lassen sich als Übersetzungen und Transformationen beschreiben, in denen Künstler-nnen längst nicht mehr die einzigen Subjekte des Wissens sind. Denn in den künstlerischen Praktiken des Entwerfens, Skizzierens, Modellierens, Probens und Experimentierens entfalten Medien und Materialien ihre je eigene agentielle Kraft. 'Wessen Wissen?' ist andererseits eine Frage nach der Heterogenität von Wissensformationen in ihren partikularen und partialen Perspektiven, also nach situated (...) knowledges. Damit wird die Vorstellung einer allgemeingültigen, körperlosen, neutralen Objektivität bestritten. Im Gegenzug nimmt das situierte Wissen der Künste für sich in Anspruch, Erkenntnisse hervorzubringen und zur Verfügung zu stellen. Es steht demnach für verkörperte Kenntnisse, die in das Feld des zugelassenen und legitimen Wissens kritisch intervenieren. (shrink)

When Katniss first arrives in the Capitol, she is both amazed and repulsed by the dramatic body- modifications and frivolous lives of its citizens. “What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol,” she wonders, “besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to roll in and die for their entertainment?” In this paper, I argue that the more time and energy the Capitol citizens focus on body-modification and their social lives, the more (...) self-focused they become and the less likely they are to notice or care about political injustices that don’t directly affect them. A further examination of how the frivolity of the citizens is actually used by the Capitol to strengthen its power also provides insight into what seems most troubling about the lives of the citizens not just of the Capitol but of District 13 as well—namely, their lack of self-directed significance. (shrink)

One of the biggest challenges facing both students and scholars working in the field of medieval philosophy involves the inaccessibility of relevant texts. Reliable Latin editions often just aren’t available, even for works by such central figures as Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus; furthermore, it’s difficult to find English translations of any but the most significant works in medieval philosophy, much less readable translations that remain faithful to the original text. The paucity of English translations is especially unfortunate, since it (...) then becomes difficult to introduce the real intricacies of medieval philosophical and theological thought to anyone who doesn’t already possess a good foothold in medieval Latin. To that end, Marquette University Press’s Mediaeval Philosophical Texts in Translation series constitutes a valuable resource for anyone interested in gaining further knowledge or a deeper appreciation of influential medieval texts, and William of Auvergne: The Soul, the most recent volume, makes for a most welcome addition to the series. (shrink)

Die Welt liegt in Scherben, so heisst es. Und sich mit einer Welt anzufreunden, die sich der Anfreundung entzieht, scheint paradox. Christina Thürmer-Rohr kreist in ihren Essays zu Feminismus, Pluralität, Dialog, Aussenseitertum, Vergänglichkeit und zum politischen Denken Hannah Arendts um den Widerstreit zwischen dem Heimatlichen und dem Unheimlichen - und um die Fiktionen vom »heilen« Geschlecht. Sie widerspricht dabei der Annahme, Fremdheit sei das Andere der Freundschaft, Freundschaft das Andere der Fremdheit. So entsteht eine Karte, auf der man sich (...) hin- und herbewegen kann, denn die Nachbarschaft der einzelnen Texte eröffnet Türen zu Lesarten, die nicht in den gewohnten Spuren bleiben, und führt zu unerledigten Fragen, die keine Ruhe lassen." --Back cover. (shrink)

In this paper we offer an exegesis of Hilary Putnam’s classic argument against the brain-in-avat hypothesis offered in his Reason, truth and history (1981). In it, Putnam argues that we cannot be brains in a vat because the semantics of the situation make it incoherent for anyone to wonder whether they are a brain a vat. Putnam’s argument is that in order for ‘I am a brain in a vat’ to be true, the person uttering it would have to be (...) able to refer successfully to those things: the vat, and the envatted brain. Putnam thinks that reference can’t be secured without relevant kinds of causal relations, which, if envatted, the brain would lack, and so, it fails to be able to meaningfully utter ‘I am a brain in a vat’. We consider the implications of Putnam’s arguments for the traditional sceptic. In conclusion, we discuss the role of Putnam’s arguments against the brain in a vat hypothesis in his larger defense of his own internal realism against metaphysical realism. (shrink)

Background We report a randomised controlled clinical trial of neurofeedback therapy intervention for ADHD/ADD in adults. We focus on internal mechanics of neurofeedback learning, to elucidate the primary role of cortical self-regulation in neurofeedback. We report initial results; more extensive analysis will follow. Methods Trial has two phases: intervention and follow-up. The intervention consisted of neurofeedback treatment, including intake and outtake measurements, using a waiting-list control group. Treatment involved $\sim$40 hour-long sessions 2-5 times per week. Training involved either theta/beta or (...) sensorimotor-rhythm regimes, adapted by adding a novel 'inverse-training' condition to promote self-regulation. Follow-up (ongoing) will consist of self-report and executive function tests. Setting Intake and outtake measurements were conducted at University of Helsinki. Treatment was administered at partner clinic Mental Capital Care, Helsinki. Randomisation We randomly allocated half the sample then adaptively allocated the remainder to minimise baseline differences in prognostic variables. Blinding Waiting-list control design meant trial was not blinded. Participants 54 adult Finnish participants (mean age 36 years; 29 females) were recruited after screening by psychiatric review. 44 had ADHD diagnoses, 10 had ADD. Measurements Symptoms were assessed by computerised attention test (T.O.V.A.) and self-report scales, at intake and outtake. Performance during neurofeedback trials was recorded. Results Participants were recruited and completed intake measurements during summer 2012, before assignment to treatment and control, September 2012. Outtake measurements ran April-August 2013. After dropouts, 23 treatment and 21 waiting-list participants remained for analysis. Initial analysis showed that, compared to waiting-list control, neurofeedback promoted improvement of self-reported ADHD symptoms, but did not show transfer of learning to T.O.V.A. Comprehensive analysis will be reported elsewhere. Trial Registration "Computer Enabled Neuroplasticity Treatment (CENT)", ISRCTN13915109. Partly funded by Finnish science agency TEKES, project #440078. (shrink)

The first annual Alchemy Lecture brings four deep and agile writers from different geographies and disciplines into vibrant conversation on a topic of urgent relevance: humans and borders. Borders, Human Itineraries, and All Our Relation captures and expands those conversations in insightful, passionate ways. Architect, artist, and urban theorist Dele Adeyemo (UK/Nigeria) calls attention to the complexity of Black infrastructures, questioning how "the environments that surround us condition the possibility of our being." Poet Natalie Diaz (US/Mojave/Akimel O'otham) writes: "Like story, (...) migration is the sensual movement of knowledge," and asks, "What is the language we need to live right now?" Philosopher Nadia Yala Kisukidi (France) suggests there is no diasporic life "without the dynamics of fabulation, where we pass down, from generation to generation, the stories of our ancestors who walked barefoot for many months." And cultural theorist Rinaldo Walcott (Canada) asks us to consider inheritances beyond white supremacist logics: "What might it mean to live a life, if we can't risk desiring and working towards utopia?" As each Alchemist considers the legacies of anticolonial struggle, the future of the planet, and the textures of Black and Indigenous life, their essays speak to each other in multiple ways, creating something startling and revelatory: a vision of the world as it is, and as it could be. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.1 (2001) 143-144 [Access article in PDF] Scott MacDonald and Eleonore Stump, editors. Aquinas's Moral Theory. Essays in Honor of Norman Kretzmann. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999. Pp. vi i+ 291. $49.95 Although medieval philosophy generally hasn't received much attention from Anglo-American philosophers in the last few centuries, the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas has long been the exception to that rule. In one (...) sense, then, the collection of essays in Aquinas's Moral Theory fits into a long-standing and rich tradition of critical analysis and thoughtful reconstruction. In another sense, however, the book treads ground that is, if not entirely new, then at least not well worn. Most treatments of Aquinas's ethics discuss it in separation from the rest of his work. Aquinas himself, however, sees his moral theory as intrinsically tied up with other aspects of his philosophical system, such as his metaphysics and his philosophical theology. Aquinas's Moral Theory argues that fully understanding Aquinas's ethics, then, requires attention to the way in which "his interests in moral issues often flow into and inform and shape his work in other areas, just as his moral reflections are shaped and grounded by them" (3).MacDonald and Stump have drawn together a group of ten essays by respected scholars in medieval philosophy—essays written with the explicit intent of examining Aquinas's moral theory both in its own right and in light of Aquinas's broader philosophical system. Not surprisingly, the papers in the book range over a wide number of philosophical and theological topics. Moreover, they explore connections not only within Aquinas's work, but between Aquinas and Aristotle, between Aquinas and his contemporaries, and between Aquinas's thought and problems in contemporary philosophy. [End Page 143] It's useful, then, that the papers are grouped under three main headings: Moral Theory and Moral Theology, Moral Psychology and Practical Reason, and Moral Theory in Philosophy of Language and Metaphysics.Perhaps the most striking feature of this particular collection of essays is the diversity of scholarship it represents. Although the ten essays contribute to the same larger project, the individual authors use at least three distinct approaches in accomplishing that goal: for example, Anthony Kenny ("Aquinas on Aristotelian Happiness") and Mark Jordan ("Ideals of Scientia Moralis and the Invention of the Summa theologiae") examine motivations for some of the distinctive innovations in Aquinas's moral thought. By contrast, the essays by Jan Aertsen ("Thomas Aquinas on the Good: The Relation between Metaphysics and Ethics"), E. J. Ashworth ("Aquinas on Significant Utterance: Interjection, Blasphemy, Prayer"), John Boler ("Aquinas on Exceptions in Natural Law"), and Paul Spade ("Degrees of Being, Degrees of Goodness: Aquinas on Levels of Reality") seek primarily to raise or resolve difficulties within Aquinas's philosophical system. Finally, Peter King ("Aquinas on the Passions"), Scott MacDonald ("Practical Reasoning and Reasons-Explanations: Aquinas's Account of Reason's Role in Action"), Gareth Matthews ("Saint Thomas and the Principle of Double Effect"), and Eleonore Stump ("Wisdom: Will, Belief, and Moral Goodness") consider what light Aquinas has to shed on issues of particular interest to contemporary philosophers.The rich variety of viewpoints and interpretations that constitute one of the main strengths of this volume also constitutes one of its main weaknesses, however. The difference between the approaches of, say, Stump, Jordan, and Aertsen are almost dizzying. So the collection of essays doesn't yield a unified picture of Aquinas's moral theory; readers looking for an introduction to Aquinas's ethics or for a comprehensive overview of its relation to his broader metaphysical system will be disappointed. In particular, the papers in the section devoted to moral theory in philosophy of language and metaphysics raise more questions than they answer; the reader is left wondering what further consequences the provocative claims made there have for Aquinas's ethics.Still, this represents not as much a flaw in the book itself as it does a conscious call to further scholarship. As Aertsen and Spade both remark... (shrink)

Theorists have debated whether our ability to understand sarcasm (pertaining here to verbal irony) is principally determined by the context or by properties of the comment itself. The current research investigated an alternative view that broadens the focus on the comment itself, suggesting that mitigating a highly positive concept by using negation generates sarcastic interpretations by default. In the current study, pretests performed on the target utterances presented in isolation established their default interpretations; novel affirmative phrases (e.g., He is the (...) best lawyer) were interpreted literally, whereas equally novel negative counterparts (e.g., He isn’t the best lawyer) were interpreted sarcastically. In Experiment 1 (an eye-tracking study), prior context biased these utterances toward literal or sarcastic interpretations. Results showed that target utterances were easier to process in contexts supporting their default interpretations, regardless of affirmation/negation. Results from a second eye-tracking experiment suggested that readers’ tendency to interpret negative phrases sarcastically is related to their own tendency to use malicious humor. Our findings suggest that negation leads to certain ambiguous utterances receiving sarcastic interpretations by default and that this process may be further intensified by personality factors. (shrink)

Background: Magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging is a neuroimaging technique that may be useful for non-invasive mapping of brain temperature over a large brain volume. To date, intra-subject reproducibility of MRSI-based brain temperature has not been investigated. The objective of this repeated measures MRSI-t study was to establish intra-subject reproducibility and repeatability of brain temperature, as well as typical brain temperature range.Methods: Healthy participants aged 23–46 years were scanned at two time points ~12-weeks apart. Volumetric MRSI data were processed by reconstructing (...) metabolite and water images using parametric spectral analysis. Brain temperature was derived using the frequency difference between water and creatine for 47 regions of interest delineated by the modified Automated Anatomical Labeling atlas. Reproducibility was measured using the coefficient of variation for repeated measures, and repeatability was determined using the standard error of measurement. For each region, the upper and lower bounds of Minimal Detectable Change were established to characterize the typical range of TCRE values.Results: The mean global brain temperature over all subjects was 37.2°C with spatial variations across ROIs. There was a significant main effect for time [F = 37.0, p < 0.0001] and for brain region [F = 2.66, p < 0.0001]. The time*brain region interaction was not significant [F = 0.80, p = 0.83]. Participants' TCRE was stable for each ROI across both time points, with ROIs' COVrep ranging from 0.81 to 3.08% ; majority of ROIs had a COVrep <2.0%.Conclusions: Brain temperature measurements were highly consistent between both time points, indicating high reproducibility and repeatability of MRSI-t. MRSI-t may be a promising diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic tool for non-invasively monitoring brain temperature changes in health and disease. However, further studies of healthy participants with larger sample size and numerous repeated acquisitions are imperative for establishing a reference range of typical brain TCRE, as well as the threshold above which TCRE is likely pathological. (shrink)

In the long-running debate on the interest of the dead, Joan C. Callahan argues against such interests and although Søren Holm for practical reasons is prepared to consider posthumous interests, he does not see any moral basis to support such interests. He argues that the whole question is irresolvable, yet finds privacy interests where Tutankhamen is concerned. Callahan argues that there can be reasons to hold on to the fiction that there are posthumous interests, namely if it is comforting for (...) the living and instrumental for society. Thus, despite arguing against the position that the dead have any interests or for any moral basis for such interests, these “interests” are still taken into consideration in the end. This shows the unsatisfactory basis of their positions and indicates the tenacity of the moral intuition that the dead can have moral claims on the living. One example of a posthumous interest is the interest in one’s good name. Here we argue that it is an interest of moral significance. This implies that if individuals restrict use of their sample when they are still alive, those restrictions apply after their death. Further, it implies that one should be concerned with the reputation of historic persons. Research that defeats these interests calls for justification. We have suggested two lines of thinking along which such a discussion could go: investigating the truth-value of the good name and the relevance of bringing it into possible disrepute. (shrink)

Queen Christina of Sweden was unconventional in her time, leading to hypotheses on her gender and possible hermaphroditic nature. If genetic analysis can substantiate the latter claim, could this bring the queen into disrepute 300 years after her death? Joan C. Callahan has argued that if a reputation changes, this constitutes a change only in the group of people changing their views and not in the person whose reputation it is. Is this so? This paper analyses what constitutes change (...) and draws out the implications to the reputation of the dead. It is argued that a reputation is a relational property which can go through changes. The change is “real” for the group changing their views on Queen Christina and of a Cambridge kind for the long dead queen herself. Cambridge changes result in new properties being acquired, some of which can be of significance. (shrink)

With the advanced methods of analysing old biological material, it is pressing to discuss what should be allowed to be done with human remains, particularly for well documented historical individuals. We argue that Queen Christina of Sweden, who challenged the traditional gender roles, has an interest in maintaining her privacy when there are continued attempts to reveal her ‘true’ gender. In the long-running philosophical debate on posthumous wronging, the fundamental question is: Who is wronged? Our aim is to find (...) this ‘missing subject’ using narrative theory.Narrative identity emphasises the fact that no person is alone in knowing or telling their life story. People’s lives are entangled and parts of the life story of a deceased person can remain in the living realm. Since the narrative identity of a person does not necessarily end upon their death, and this narrative continues to relate directly to the person who once existed, it is the narrative subject that can continue to be posthumously wronged. Queen Christina can no longer maintain her own identity, but we maintain it by our research into her life. We propose three duties relevant for posthumous wronging: the duty of truthfulness, the duty of recognition and the duty to respect privacy. (shrink)

Comment se vivent et s’expérimentent actuellement les relations de parenté dans le Pacifique? Voici le fil conducteur qui relie les onze contributions de ce bel ouvrage dirigé par Christina Toren et Simonne Pauwels. Il actualise l’anthropologie de la parenté des îles du Pacifique, de la Nouvelle-Zélande à la Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée, en passant par Fidji, Tonga, Samoa et Taïwan. En introduction, C. Toren et S. Pauwels questionnent la manière dont la parenté constitue dans le Pacifique une t...

Positive emotions are highly valued and frequently sought. Beyond just being pleasant, however, positive emotions may also lead to long-term benefits in important domains, including work, physical health, and interpersonal relationships. Research thus far has focused on the broader functions of positive emotions. According to the broaden-and-build theory, positive emotions expand people’s thought–action repertoires and allow them to build psychological, intellectual, and social resources. New evidence suggests that positive emotions—particularly gratitude—may also play a role in motivating individuals to engage in (...) positive behaviors leading to self-improvement. We propose and offer supportive evidence that expressing gratitude leads people to muster effort to improve themselves via increases in connectedness, elevation, humility, and specific negative states including indebtedness. (shrink)

In this paper, I present and explore some ideas about how factive emotional states and factive perceptual states each relate to knowledge and reasons. This discussion will shed light on the so-called ‘perceptual model’ of the emotions.

Microaggressions are a new moral category that refers to the subtle yet harmful forms of discriminatory behavior experienced by members of oppressed groups. Such behavior often results from implicit bias, leaving individual perpetrators unaware of the harm they have caused. Moreover, microaggressions are often dismissed on the grounds that they do not constitute a real or morally significant harm. My goal is therefore to explain why microaggressions are morally significant and argue that we are responsible for their harms. I offer (...) a conceptual framework for microaggressions, exploring the central mechanisms used for identification and the empirical research concerning their harm. The cumulative harm of microaggressions presents a unique case for understanding disaggregation models for contributed harms, blame allocation, and individual responsibility within structural oppression. Our standard moral model for addressing cumulative harm is to hold all individual contributors blameworthy for their particular contributions. However, if we aim to hold people responsible for their unconscious microaggressions and address cumulative harm holistically, this model is inadequate. Drawing on Iris Marion Young's social connection model, I argue that we, as individual perpetrators of microaggressions, have a responsibility to respond to the cumulative harm to which we have individually contributed. (shrink)

How do people decide which claims should be considered mere beliefs and which count as knowledge? Although little is known about how people attribute knowledge to others, philosophical debate about the nature of knowledge may provide a starting point. Traditionally, a belief that is both true and justified was thought to constitute knowledge. However, philosophers now agree that this account is inadequate, due largely to a class of counterexamples (termed ‘‘Gettier cases’’) in which a person’s justified belief is true, but (...) only due to luck. We report four experiments examining the effect of truth, justification, and ‘‘Gettiering’’ on people’s knowledge attributions. These experiments show that: (1) people attribute knowledge to others only when their beliefs are both true and justified; (2) in contrast to contemporary philosophers, people also attribute knowledge to others in Gettier situations; and (3) knowledge is not attributed in one class of Gettier cases, but only because the agent’s belief is based on ‘‘apparent’’ evidence. These findings suggest that the lay concept of knowledge is roughly consistent with the traditional account of knowledge as justified true belief, and also point to a major difference between the epistemic intuitions of laypeople and those of philosophers. (shrink)