Despite his place as one of the most original thinkers of the Middle Ages, the legacy of Joachim of Fiore has eluded clear comprehension in at least two areas, those of texts and transmission. That is, Joachim studies have, until most recently, been limited by a lack of modern editions for Joachim’s works, and by an incomplete understanding of how the revolutionary ideology inspired by a twelfth-century abbot from Calabria ultimately came to be appropriated by disparate groups such as the (...) Spiritual Franciscans, the Münster Anabaptists, and Spanish missionaries in colonial Latin America. Yet there has been much scholarship, of exacting standards and of immense value, which has pushed forward our knowledge of... (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the global trend towards spending increasing amounts of time online. I explore some of the potential negative consequences of lockdown-induced increases in time spent online, and I argue that the stressful context of the pandemic and lockdowns is exacerbated by being online beyond that which is required for essential purposes. Time spent online may increase stress levels by perpetuating the sympathetic nervous system's fight-or-flight response, draining a person’s energy and diminishing one’s ability to deal with illness. (...) I frame the situation as one in which the pandemic context, combined with a mandatory need to be online more, forces many people into what Daniel Kahneman calls “System 1 thinking”, or “fast thinking”. I argue that digital hygiene requires the suspension of System 1 thinking, and that “philosophical perception” resonates with potential remedies in this regard. (shrink)

For about the last three decades, postmodernists have exposed the weaknesses of modernist formalism. Western modernist formalism effectively locates art’s meaning in its formal qualities. Clive Bell’s twentieth-century significant form aesthetic theory, Clement Greenberg and abstract art, and art educators’ preoccupation with design elements and principles typify this modernist tendency.1 In contrast, postmodernists generally insist that sociocultural context supplies art’s meaning. Within contemporary art education, postmodernist theory relies strongly on semiotics, neopragmatism, and social constructivist theories of culture; these tend to (...) reduce form to being an arbitrary vehicle for content supplied by cultural.. (shrink)

Medical ethicist, Guidry-Grimes has critically reviewed the concept of insight, voicing concerns that it lacks consensus as to its components and that it undermines patient perspectives. We respond by briefly summarising research over the last 30 years that she overlooks which has helped establish the clinical validity of the construct. This includes the adoption of standardised assessment tools—at least in research—and longitudinal and cross-sectional studies quantifying associations with psychopathological, clinical and cognitive measures. We also make the distinction between the current (...) standards for assessing decision-making capacity leading to, where appropriate, involuntary treatment in clinical and medico-legal settings which in most legislations do not include insight assessments, and anecdotal reports of the use and misuse of ‘lack of insight’ as a proxy for more comprehensive evaluation. We conclude by encouraging a broader view of insight akin to self-knowledge. (shrink)

Depersonalization is characterised by a profound disruption of self-awareness mainly characterised by feelings of disembodiment and subjective emotional numbing.It has been proposed that depersonalization is caused by a fronto-limbic suppressive mechanism – presumably mediated via attention – which manifests subjectively as emotional numbing, and disables the process by which perception and cognition normally become emotionally coloured, giving rise to a subjective feeling of ‘unreality’.Our functional neuroimaging and psychophysiological studies support the above model and indicate that, compared with normal and clinical (...) controls, DPD patients show increased prefrontal activation as well as reduced activation in insula/limbic-related areas to aversive, arousing emotional stimuli.Although a putative inhibitory mechanism on emotional processing might account for the emotional numbing and characteristic perceptual detachment, it is likely, as suggested by some studies, that parietal mechanisms underpin feelings of disembodiment and lack of agency feelings. (shrink)

These are set against introductory essays describing the philosophical, historical and psychological approaches, making this a uniquely inclusive overview.

Before a general cognitive model for recurrent complex visual hallucinations (RCVH) is accepted, there must be more research into the neuropsychological and cognitive characteristics of the various disorders in which they occur. Currently available data are insufficient to distinguish whether the similar phenomenology of RCVH across different disorders is in fact produced by a single or by multiple cognitive mechanisms.

Mindreading in schizophrenia has been shown to be impaired in a multitude of studies. Furthermore, there is increasing evidence to suggest that metacognition is damaged as well. Lack of insight, or the inability to recognise one's own disorder, is an example of such a failure. We suggest that mindreading and metacognition are linked, but separable.

The insight a patient shares into their own psychosis is fundamental to their condition - it goes to the heart of what we understand 'madness' to be. Can a person be expected to accept treatment for a condition that they deny they have? Can a person be held responsible for their actions if those actions are inspired by their own unique perceptions and beliefs - beliefs that no-one else shares? The topic of insight in schizophrenia and related disorders has become (...) a major focus of research in psychiatry and psychology. It has important clinical implications in terms of outcome, treatment adherence, competence, and forensic issues. In order to study 'insight' a broad perspective is required. This involves applying knowledge from the cognitive and brain sciences, as well as from philosophy and the social sciences. Insight and Psychosis comprises a series of in-depth, well-referenced, scholarly overviews from each of these perspectives with a strong empirical foundation - including in some cases the presentation of new data and meta-analysis of the published literature. These are integrated and synthesised by the editors, both acknowledged experts in the field. The scope is truly international and spans theoretical perspectives, clinical practice, and consumer views. The book will act as a source for students and researchers interested in pursuing any number of questions and controversies around lack of insight and awareness, and will guide clinical psychologists and psychiatrists who seek a broader view of the many facets of insight that might arise during their day-to-day work. (shrink)

Assessment of decision-making capacity (DMC) can be difficult in acquired brain injury (ABI) particularly with the syndrome of organic personality disorder (OPD) (the “frontal lobe syndrome”). Clinical neuroscience may help but there are challenges translating its constructs to the decision-making abilities considered relevant by law and ethics. An in-depth interview study of DMC in OPD was undertaken. Six patients were purposefully sampled and rich interview data were acquired for scrutiny using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Interview data revealed that awareness of deficit (...) and thinking about psychological states can be present. However, the awareness of deficit may not be “online” and effectively integrated into decision-making. Without this online awareness of deficit the ability to appreciate or use and weigh information in the process of deciding some matters appeared absent. We argue that the decision-making abilities discussed are: (1) necessary for DMC, (2) threatened by ABI, and (3) assessable at interview. Some advice for practically incorporating these abilities within assessments of DMC in patients with OPD is outlined. (shrink)

This manuscript reports on a landmark symposium on the ethical, legal and technical challenges of xenotransplantation in the UK. King’s College London, with endorsement from the British Transplantation Society (BTS), and the European Society of Organ Transplantation (ESOT), brought together a group of experts in xenotransplantation science, ethics and law to discuss the ethical, regulatory and technical challenges surrounding translating xenotransplantation into the clinical setting. The symposium was the first of its kind in the UK for 20 years. This paper (...) summarises the content of the expert lectures showcasing the progress which has been made in xenotransplantation including—the history of xenotransplantation, advances in gene edited animals and progress towards clinical xenotransplantation. We then set out the ethical and legal issues still to be resolved. Finally, we report the themes of the roundtable discussion highlighting areas of consensus and controversy. While the detail of the legal discussion was directed towards the UK, the principles and summary reported here are intended to be applicable to any jurisdiction seeking to implement clinical xenotransplantation. (shrink)

We developed a technique to examine the effects of emotional content and context on verbal memory. Two sets of sentences were devised: in the first, each sentence was emotionally arousing due to the inclusion of an emotional “target” word. In the second set, “targets” were replaced with well-matched neutral words. Subjects read aloud a selection of emotional and neutral sentences, and were then surprised with memory tasks after a range of time delays. Emotional target words were remembered significantly better than (...) neutral words in all experiments. Recognition of emotional words was relatively stable despite increasing delays between encoding and recognition testing, in contrast to memory for neutral words, which decayed over time. Memory for neutral non-target words was enhanced when words had been presented in an emotional context. The results confirm the phenomenon of emotional enhancement of memory at short and long delays and suggest that emotional context may be encoded independently of word meaning. (shrink)

In America today, the problem of achieving racial justice--whether through "color-blind" policies or through affirmative action--provokes more noisy name-calling than fruitful deliberation. In Color Conscious, K. Anthony Appiah and Amy Gutmann, two eminent moral and political philosophers, seek to clear the ground for a discussion of the place of race in politics and in our moral lives. Provocative and insightful, their essays tackle different aspects of the question of racial justice; together they provide a compelling response to our nation's (...) most vexing problem.Appiah begins by establishing the problematic nature of the idea of race. He draws on the scholarly consensus that "race" has no legitimate biological basis, exploring the history of its invention as a social category and showing how the concept has been used to explain differences among groups of people by mistakenly attributing various "essences" to them. Appiah argues that, while people of color may still need to gather together, in the face of racism, under the banner of race, they need also to balance carefully the calls of race against the many other dimensions of individual identity; and he suggests, finally, what this might mean for our political life.Gutmann examines alternative political responses to racial injustice. She argues that American politics cannot be fair to all citizens by being color blind because American society is not color blind. Fairness, not color blindness, is a fundamental principle of justice. Whether policies should be color-conscious, class conscious, or both in particular situations, depends on an open-minded assessment of their fairness. Exploring timely issues of university admissions, corporate hiring, and political representation, Gutmann develops a moral perspective that supports a commitment to constitutional democracy.Appiah and Gutmann write candidly and carefully, presenting many-faceted interpretations of a host of controversial issues. Rather than supplying simple answers to complex questions, they offer to citizens of every color principled starting points for the ongoing national discussions about race. (shrink)

Humans possess great capacity for behavioral and cultural change, but our ability to manage change is still limited. This article has two major objectives: first, to sketch a basic science of intentional change centered on evolution; second, to provide examples of intentional behavioral and cultural change from the applied behavioral sciences, which are largely unknown to the basic sciences community.All species have evolved mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity that enable them to respond adaptively to their environments. Some mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity (...) count as evolutionary processes in their own right. The human capacity for symbolic thought provides an inheritance system having the same kind of combinatorial diversity as does genetic recombination and antibody formation. Taking these propositions seriously allows an integration of major traditions within the basic behavioral sciences, such as behaviorism, social constructivism, social psychology, cognitive psychology, and evolutionary psychology, which are often isolated and even conceptualized as opposed to one another.The applied behavioral sciences include well-validated examples of successfully managing behavioral and cultural change at scales ranging from individuals to small groups to large populations. However, these examples are largely unknown beyond their disciplinary boundaries, for lack of a unifying theoretical framework. Viewed from an evolutionary perspective, they are examples of managing evolved mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity, including open-ended processes of variation and selection.Once the many branches of the basic and applied behavioral sciences become conceptually unified, we are closer to a science of intentional change than one might think. (shrink)

The main question that Firestone & Scholl (F&S) pose is whether “what and how we see is functionally independent from what and how we think, know, desire, act, and so forth” (sect. 2, para. 1). We synthesize a collection of concerns from an interdisciplinary set of coauthors regarding F&S's assumptions and appeals to intuition, resulting in their treatment of visual perception as context-free.

"A Workbook for Arguments" builds on Anthony Weston's "Rulebook for Arguments" to provide a complete textbook for a course in critical thinking or informal logic. "Workbook" includes: The entire text of "Rulebook," supplemented with extensive further explanations and exercises. Homework exercises adapted from a wide range of arguments from newspapers, philosophical texts, literature, movies, videos, and other sources. Practical advice to help students succeed when applying the "Rulebook's" rules to the examples in the homework exercises. Suggestions for further practice, (...) outlining activities that students can do by themselves or with classmates to improve their skills. Detailed instructions for in-class activities and take-home assignments designed to engage students. An appendix on mapping arguments, giving students a solid introduction to this vital skill in constructing complex and multi-step arguments and evaluating them. Model answers to odd-numbered problems, including commentaries on the strengths and weaknesses of selected sample answers and further discussion of some of the substantive intellectual, philosophical, or ethical issues they raise. (shrink)

Numerous scenarios explain the origin of the eukaryote cell by fusion or endosymbiosis between an archaeon and a bacterium (and sometimes a third partner). We evaluate these hypotheses using the following three criteria. Can the data be explained by the null hypothesis that new features arise sequentially along a stem lineage? Second, hypotheses involving an archaeon and a bacterium should undergo standard phylogenetic tests of gene distribution. Third, accounting for past events by processes observed in modern cells is preferable to (...) postulating unknown processes that have never been observed. For example, there are many eukaryote examples of bacteria as endosymbionts or endoparasites, but none known in archaea. Strictly post‐hoc hypotheses that ignore this third criterion should be avoided. Applying these three criteria significantly narrows the number of plausible hypotheses. Given current knowledge, our conclusion is that the eukaryote lineage must have diverged from an ancestor of archaea well prior to the origin of the mitochondrion. Significantly, the absence of ancestrally amitochondriate eukaryotes (archezoa) among extant eukaryotes is neither evidence for an archaeal host for the ancestor of mitochondria, nor evidence against a eukaryotic host. BioEssays 29: 74–84, 2007. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Evolutionary science (ES) and contextual behavioral science (CBS) have developed largely independently during the last half century. However, the earlier histories of these two bodies of knowledge are thoroughly entwined. ES provides a unifying theoretical framework for the biological sciences, and is increasingly being applied to human-related sciences. Meanwhile, CBS is concerned with influencing human behavior in a practical sense. This groundbreaking volume seeks to integrate ES and CBS to promote real, positive change in peoples' lives. Evolution and Contextual Behavioral (...) Science offers a unique glimpse into the histories of ES and CBS, shows how they are intrinsically linked, and outlines why their integration--or, reunification--is essential. By examining these two schools of thought side by side, you'll gain an understanding of why functional and contextual approaches in CBS need to be combined with ES for both fields to advance more rapidly. Finally, rather than the sequential relationship that is typically imagined between ES and CBS, you'll discover how an integrated relationship between these two sciences will result in a better framework for understanding predicting, and influencing human behavior--back cover. (shrink)

Prokaryotes are generally assumed to be the oldest existing form of life on earth. This assumption, however, makes it difficult to understand certain aspects of the transition from earlier stages in the origin of life to more complex ones, and it does not account for many apparently ancient features in the eukaryotes. From a model of the RNA world, based on relic RNA species in modern organisms, one can infer that there was an absolute requirement for a high-accuracy RNA replicase (...) even before proteins evolved. In addition, we argue here that the ribosome (together with the RNAs involved in its assembly) is so large that it must have had a prior function before protein synthesis. A model that connects and equates these two requirements (high-accuracy RNA replicase and prior function of the ribosome) can explain many steps in the origin of life while accounting for the observation that eukaryotes have retained more vestiges of the RNA world. The later derivation of prokaryote RNA metabolism and genome structure can be accounted for by the two complementary mechanisms of r-selection and thermoreduction. BioEssays 21:880–889, 1999. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

We thank the commentators for an extraordinarily diverse and constructive set of comments. Nearly all applaud our goal of sketching a unified science of change, even while raising substantive points that we look forward to addressing in our reply, which we group into the following categories: What counts as evolutionary; Ethical considerations; Complexity; Symbotypes, culture, and the future; What intentional cultural change might look like; An evolving science of cultural change; and Who decides?

"A Workbook for Arguments" builds on Anthony Weston’s "A Rulebook for Arguments" to provide a complete textbook for a course in critical thinking or informal logic. The second edition adds: Updated and improved homework exercises—nearly one third are new—to ensure that the examples continue to resonate with students. Increased coverage of scientific reasoning, demonstrating how scientific reasoning dovetails with critical thinking more generally Two new activities in which students analyze arguments in their original form, as provided in brief selections (...) from the original texts. This edition continues to include The entire text of "Rulebook," supplemented with extensive explanations and exercises. Homework exercises adapted from a wide range of arguments in a wide variety of sources. Practical advice to help students succeed. Model answers to odd-numbered problems, including commentaries on the strengths and weaknesses of selected sample answers and further discussion of some of the substantive intellectual, philosophical, or ethical issues they raise. Detailed instructions for in-class activities and take-home assignments. An appendix on mapping arguments, giving students a solid introduction to this vital skill in constructing complex and multi-step arguments and evaluating them. (shrink)

Over the past twenty-five years debate surrounding cultural diversity has become one of the most active areas of contemporary political theory and philosophy. The impact of taking cultural diversity seriously in modern political societies has led to challenges to the dominance of liberal theory and to a more serious engagement of political theory with actual political struggles. This 2007 volume of essays by leading political theorists reviews the development of multiculturalism, surveys the major approaches, addresses the critical questions posed and (...) highlights directions in research. Multiculturalism and Political Theory provides an overview for both students and researchers. (shrink)

The passages are all taken from the Treatise of human nature, except for the last one, which comes from the Enquiry concerning human understanding.