Hare’s analysis of moral language have been either obviated in contemporary meta-ethical debates or straightforwardly sided with dated forms of humean noncognitivism. It is assumed that Hare´s conceptual analysis is subject to the same critique that threatens these last positions and is in the same way inadequate. I believe this misrepresents his position and distracts us from his more important contributions to the understanding of moral language. The present paper attempts to show that, even if some miss-adjustments in Hare’s position (...) favour these assumptions, a reformulation of his account may confront such critics posing a new understanding model of the relation between descriptive and evaluative aspects in the moral case that differs from both realist and humean non-cognitivist accounts. (shrink)

In sport, perceptual skill training software is intended to assist tactical training in the field. The aim of this field study was to test whether ‘laboratory-based’ pattern recall training would augment tactical skill training performed on the field. Twenty-six soccer players between 14-16 years of age from a single team participated in this study and were divided into three groups. The first received field training on a specific tactical skill plus cognitive training sessions on the pattern recall task. The second (...) performed only the field training while the third group served as a control group and had field training on other topics. The task on the pre-, post- and retention tests was to recall specific soccer patterns displayed on a computer screen. Results showed significant changes between pre- to post-test performance. There was no significant interaction between groups and tests but the effect size was large. From pre- to retention-test, there was a significant difference between tests and an interaction between groups and tests, but no main effect difference between groups. On the basis of significance testing only retention was affected by the additional training, however, descriptive results and effect sizes from pre- to post-test were as expected and suggested there were learning benefits. Together these results indicate that augmented perceptual-cognitive training might be beneficial, but some limitations in our study design (e.g., missing field test, missing placebo group, etc.) need to be improved in future work. (shrink)

Personality traits describe dispositions influencing individuals' behavior and performance at work. However, in the context of personnel selection, the use of personality measures has continuously been questioned. To date, research in selection settings has focused uniquely on predicting task performance, missing the opportunity to exploit the potential of personality traits to predict non-task performance. Further, personality is often measured with self-report inventories, which are susceptible to self-distortion. Addressing these gaps, the planned study seeks to design new personality measures to (...) be used in the selection context to predict a wide range of performance criteria. Specifically, we will develop a situational judgment test and a behavior description interview, both assessing Big Five personality traits and Honesty-Humility to systematically compare these new measures with traditional self-report inventories regarding their criterion-related validity to predict four performance criteria: task performance, adaptive performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and counterproductive work behavior. Data will be collected in a simulated selection procedure. Based on power analyses, we aim for 200 employed study participants, who will allow us to contact their supervisors to gather criterion data. The results of this study will shed light on the suitability of different personality measures to predict an expanded range of performance criteria. (shrink)

We investigate whether risky choice framing, i.e., the preference of a sure over an equivalent risky option when choosing among gains, and the reverse when choosing among losses, depends on redundancy and density of information available in a task. Redundancy, the saliency of missing information, and density, the description of options in one or multiple chunks, was manipulated in a matrix setup presented in MouselabWeb. On the choice level we found a framing effect only in setups with non-redundant information. (...) On the process level outcomes attracted more acquisitions than probabilities, irrespective of redundancy. A dissociation between acquisition behavior and choice calls for a critical discussion of the limits of process-tracing measures for understanding and predicting choices in decision making tasks. (shrink)

The target article fails to disentangle the functional description from the structural description of the two somatosensory streams. Additional evidence and thorough reconsideration of the evidence cited argue for a functional distinction between the how processing and the what processing of somatosensory information, while questioning the validity and usefulness of the equation of these two types of processing with structural streams. We propose going one step further: to investigate how the distinct functional streams are coordinated via attention.

In the evolutionary biology of the Modern Synthesis the study of patterns refers to how to identify and systematise order in lineages, looking for hierarchies or for branching/splitting events in the tree of life, whereas the resulting order is supposed to be due to underlying processes or mechanisms. But patterns and processes play distinct roles in evo-devo: four different views on the role of patterns and processes in descriptions and explanations of development and evolution: A) transformational; B) generative; C) processual; (...) and D) complex are reviewed in this paper. Then, this discussion is related to two issues in evo-devo: homology and variation. (shrink)

This paper presents a concept for pattern matching based on a parameter optimization system for approximative numerical calculation of some parameter combination under soft and hard constraints. The concept uses a non-linear parameter optimization method with an iterative variation of parameters. The paper focuses on the information modeling process to migrate problem-domain specific criteria into optimization-compatible objects suitable for a standardized parameter optimization procedure. A step-by-step transformation process is presented and implemented in object-oriented programming: classes and interfaces. The method (...) is applicable to a wide range of pattern-matching problems due to its flexibility and extensibility. (shrink)

In spite of incomplete knowledge we are permanently forced to act in complex real-life situations. First, a modern concept of information, the non-trivial transition from information to knowledge, patterns of missing knowledge, and the concept of perspective notions are studied. The main sections review some guidelines for action under incomplete information. A modern view of the concepts of holism and wholeness reveals that (in contrast to some critics) general system theory does not require any metaphysical assumption or previously accepted (...) worldview. The concepts of holism and wholeness, as well as general system theory, are well-founded, even under strict criteria. (shrink)

This paper investigates the actual use of truth as a criterion in the setting up of and choice between descriptive characterisations. The consideration for truth is often weighed against other considerations. This weighing character is illuminated through examples from everyday life, politics, law, and science. In everyday life the weighing character shows itself inter alia through the categories of ‘white lies’ and ‘great questions’, and in politics, inter alia through the categories of ‘personal character’ versus ‘the party’. In law (...) there are numerous examples of norms that increase the probability of untrue characterisations being taken as a basis for the application of the law. This paper focuses on the categories of ‘exclusion of evidence’, ‘burden of proof’, and ‘adjusting of facts as a means to concretely reasonable and just results’. The paper concludes by showing that burden of proof considerations are also found in an area in which many people assume that the truth criterion is paramount, namely science. The method is thus casuistic. However, the aim is a certain representativity in relation to the problem aspects. (shrink)

This paper proposes a limitation to epistemological claims to theory building prevalent in critical realist research. While accepting the basic ontological and epistemological positions of the perspective as developed by Roy Bhaskar, it is argued that application in social science has relied on sociological concepts to explain the underlying generative mechanisms, and that in many cases this has been subject to the effects of an anthropocentric constraint. A novel contribution to critical realist research comes from the work and ideas of (...) Gregory Bateson. This is in service of two central goals of critical realism, namely an abductive route to theory building and a commitment to interdisciplinarity. Five aspects of Bateson’s epistemology are introduced: difference, logical levels of abstraction, recursive causal loops, the logic of metaphor, and Bateson’s theory of mind. The comparison between Bateson and Bhaskar’s ideas is seen as a form of double description, illustrative of the point being raised. The paper concludes with an appeal to critical realists to start exploring the writing and outlook of Bateson himself. (shrink)

I argue that the Universal Law formulation of the Categorical Imperative is best interpreted as a test or decision procedure of moral rightness and not as a criterion intended to explain the deontic status of actions. Rather, the Humanity formulation is best interpreted as a moral criterion. I also argue that because the role of a moral criterion is to explain, and thus specify what makes an action right or wrong, Kant's Humanity formulation yields a theory of relevant descriptions.

Call a bit of scientific discourse a description of a missing system when (i) it has the surface appearance of an accurate description of an actual, concrete system (or kind of system) from the domain of inquiry, but (ii) there are no actual, concrete systems in the world around us fitting the description it contains, and (iii) that fact is recognised from the outset by competent practitioners of the scientific discipline in question. Scientific textbooks, classroom lectures, and journal articles (...) abound with such passages; and there is a widespread practice of talking and thinking as though there are systems which fit the descriptions they contain perfectly, despite the recognition that no actual, concrete systems do so—call this the face value practice. There are, furthermore, many instances in which philosophers engage in the face value practice whilst offering answers to epistemological and methodological questions about the sciences. Three questions, then: (1) How should we interpret descriptions of missing systems? (2) How should we make sense of the face value practice? (3) Is there a set of plausible answers to (1) and (2) which legitimates reliance on the face value practice in our philosophical work, and can support the weight of the accounts which are entangled with that practice? In this paper I address these questions by considering three answers to the first: that descriptions of missing systems are straightforward descriptions of abstract objects, that they are indirect descriptions of “property-containing” abstracta, and that they are (in a different way) indirect descriptions of mathematical structures. All three proposals are present in the literature, but I find them wanting. The result is to highlight the importance of developing a satisfactory understanding of descriptions of missing systems and the face value practice, to put pressure on philosophical accounts which rely on the practice, and to help us assess the viability of certain approaches to thinking about models, theory structure, and scientific representation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature by Donald RutherfordChristia MercerDonald Rutherford. Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pp. xiii + 301. Cloth, $54.95. Paper, $18.95.During the twentieth century, scholars of Leibniz have mostly ignored his theology. The tide has recently turned, however, and a few brave souls have begun to disentangle the subtle complications of the relations between Leibniz’s philosophical (...) theology and the rest of his thought. Donald Rutherford is such a brave soul. In his book, he intends to recover “the theodicy as an essential part of Leibniz’s philosophy” (1). To this end, he offers “a comprehensive interpretation of Leibniz’s metaphysical theories—particularly those of his late writings,” and attempts to show “how theodicy [End Page 139] and metaphysics inform each other in his thought” (1). The book has three parts and ten chapters. In the three chapters of Part I, Rutherford “focuses on Leibniz’s theodicy: his vindication of divine justice, the character of the goods that make this the best of all possible worlds, and the special role assigned to rational minds as agents within God’s providential plan for the world” (1). In the three chapters of Part II, Rutherford turns his attention to “Leibniz’s conception of metaphysics as a rational science” and to the notion of substance at its center (2). Finally, in the four chapters of Part III, Rutherford presents an account of Leibniz’s late metaphysics.The structure of Rutherford’s general argument is ingenious. Most fundamentally, he argues that “the guiding force behind” the theodicy is a commitment to reason: “reason as it directs the creative will of God, reason as it is... realized in the intelligible order of the created world, and reason as it helps human beings discern and appreciate that order.” Moreover, “Leibniz’s metaphysical theories are designed to promote the goals of his theodicy” by evidencing as much as possible that rational order (2). Therefore, once we see the metaphysics in light of its theological goal, the close interconnections among its parts will become evident. As Rutherford nicely puts it: “The Leibniz who emerges in this book is one for whom theoretical and practical ends are inextricably linked” (3).In Part I, Rutherford describes the project of the theodicy and, along the way, offers answers to questions which have plagued scholars for decades: What is the relation between variety and simplicity as (apparently conflicting) criteria of worldly goodness? How is the demand for the maximization of perfection related to the (apparently conflicting) commitment to the optimization of the happiness of rational creatures? How can there be different orders and harmonies in one world? Although many of Rutherford’s proposals are both plausible and interesting, they are painted with such broad strokes that they are sometimes difficult to evaluate. Some of the missing details are supplied later in the book, but others are not. For example, a clear picture of the relation between God’s power, goodness, will, and rationality never emerges. In Part II, Rutherford surveys some important texts and topics which concern Leibniz’s methodology, and he presents an intelligent interpretation of Leibniz’s theory of substance. There is much that is interesting here. In Part III, Rutherford is at his best. He ties together many of the separate strands of the late philosophy and tells a plausible story about monads, panorganism, and corporeal substance. This is a genuine achievement and one that will generate a lot of discussion.While I applaud Rutherford’s attempt to construct a coherent account of Leibniz’s philosophy, it is my opinion that he has attached too much importance both to the rational order that is supposed to please the faculty of reason, whether divine or human, and to that faculty itself. According to the Christianized Platonism that Leibniz learned (among many other things) from his teachers in Leipzig, it is the intellect or understanding (intellectus) and not the reason that comes to know the most fundamental truths; and moreover the goodness that created beings (and their interrelations) are supposed to have is based on the fact that they are expressions of God... (shrink)

This paper articulates an account of causation as a collection of information-theoretic relationships between patterns instantiated in the causal nexus. I draw on Dennett’s account of real patterns to characterize potential causal relata as patterns with specific identification criteria and noise tolerance levels, and actual causal relata as those patterns instantiated at some spatiotemporal location in the rich causal nexus as originally developed by Salmon. I develop a representation framework using phase space to precisely characterize causal relata, including their (...) degree of counterfactual robustness, causal profiles, causal connectivity, and privileged grain size. By doing so, I show how the philosophical notion of causation can be rendered in a format that is amenable for direct application of mathematical techniques from information theory such that the resulting informational measures are causal informational measures. This account provides a metaphysics of causation that supports interventionist semantics and causal modeling and discovery techniques. (shrink)

Conceptual spaces are a frequently applied framework for representing concepts. One of its central aims is to find criteria for what makes a concept natural. A prominent demand is that natural concepts cover convex regions in conceptual spaces. The first aim of this paper is to analyse the convexity thesis and the arguments that have been advanced in its favour or against it. Based on this, I argue that most supporting arguments focus on single-domain concepts (e.g., colours, smells, shapes). (...) Unfortunately, these concepts are not the primary examples of natural concepts. Building on this observation, the second aim of the paper is to develop criteria for natural multi-domain concepts. The representation of such concepts has two main aspects: features that are associated with the concept and the probabilistic correlation pattern which the concept captures. Conceptual spaces, together with probabilistic considerations, provide a helpful framework to approach these aspects. With respect to feature representation, the existence of characteristic features (i.e., that apples have a specific taste) is essential. Moreover, natural concepts capture peaks of a probabilistic distribution over complex spaces. They carve up nature at its joints, that is, at areas with no or low probabilistic density. This last aspect is shown to be closely related to the convexity demand. (shrink)

Fraud in the reward-based crowdfunding market has been of concern to regulators, but it is arguably of greater importance to the nascent industry itself. Despite its significance for entrepreneurial finance, our knowledge of the occurrence, determinants, and consequences of fraud in this market, as well as the implications for the business ethics literature, remain limited. In this study, we conduct an exhaustive search of all media reports on Kickstarter campaign fraud allegations from 2010 through 2015. We then follow up until (...) 2018 to assess the ultimate outcome of each allegedly fraudulent campaign. First, we construct a sample of 193 fraud cases, and categorize them intodetectedvs.suspectedfraud, based on a set of well-defined criteria. Next, using multiple matched samples of non-fraudulent campaigns, we determine which features are associated with a higher probability of fraudulent behavior. Second, we document the short-term negative consequences of possible breaches of trust in the market, using a sample of more than 270,000 crowdfunding campaigns from 2010 through 2018 on Kickstarter. Our results show that crowdfunding projects launched around the public announcement of a late and significant misconduct detection (resulting in suspension) tend to have a lower probability of success, raise less funds, and attract fewer backers. (shrink)

Fraud in the reward-based crowdfunding market has been of concern to regulators, but it is arguably of greater importance to the nascent industry itself. Despite its significance for entrepreneurial finance, our knowledge of the occurrence, determinants, and consequences of fraud in this market, as well as the implications for the business ethics literature, remain limited. In this study, we conduct an exhaustive search of all media reports on Kickstarter campaign fraud allegations from 2010 through 2015. We then follow up until (...) 2018 to assess the ultimate outcome of each allegedly fraudulent campaign. First, we construct a sample of 193 fraud cases, and categorize them into detected vs. suspected fraud, based on a set of well-defined criteria. Next, using multiple matched samples of non-fraudulent campaigns, we determine which features are associated with a higher probability of fraudulent behavior. Second, we document the short-term negative consequences of possible breaches of trust in the market, using a sample of more than 270,000 crowdfunding campaigns from 2010 through 2018 on Kickstarter. Our results show that crowdfunding projects launched around the public announcement of a late and significant misconduct detection (resulting in suspension) tend to have a lower probability of success, raise less funds, and attract fewer backers. (shrink)

Missing Links, A Book in Ten Sessions is Lucas Ferraço Nassif's elaboration on the work of art in Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari through description, time, cosmology, and desire production. The films of Chantal Akerman, alongside Anne Carson and Ludwig Wittgenstein, are his main objects of study. -/- //The book is available, open access.// -/- //In Missing Links, Lucas Ferraço Nassif instructs that “cinema exists in the tension of desires, from everything that is in the game”. And “what (...) is in the game vibrates”, or becomes perceptible in the tempo of film and filmic thought that somehow promises to reveal the nature of this world (maybe, a world that’s about to end). To approach such perception is to submit to description, says Nassif, and then proceeds to investigate the act of describing in all its perilous demand and exhausting impossibility. What can we know, after all, of Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, at whom we look and look? Or of any seemingly-unified object that, in being worthy of our attention, must be recognized most fundamentally for the way it slips and blurs? I’m dazzled by this writer’s courage to “work on the void”, to tilt, heart in mouth, at ghosts and ruins. This is the drama I came for. — Matt Longabucco// -/- //Inside the cracks in Lucas Ferraço Nassif’s cinecriticism is an elegy for Chantal Akerman, born the same year as me and Anne Carson too, both here hailed. This elegy is composed as a montage that tells the tale of the Jewish filmmaker as desperado fleeing Sherriff Jean-Luc Godard on a runaway midnight train to Rio, which makes an unscheduled stop in Wittgenstein, Montana. What with all the humming, you just can’t see it. Or if you can, you can’t describe it. “We have nowhere else to start.” — Charles Bernstein// -/- //Lucas Ferraço Nassif’s expansive, rhizomatic project is “full” of missing links in the sense of plenitude: a surfeit of references, genres, affects, and paths for the reader to follow, the listener to harken, the viewer to watch. In the process of tracing affinities between the cast of characters in the intellectual drama staged here — from Jean-Luc Godard to Ludwig Wittgenstein, Anne Carson to Chantal Akerman, Gilles Deleuze to Jacques Lacan, and beyond — we have the chance to reconsider the articulations and boundaries, the flows and stoppages, between film and writing, autobiography and criticism, theory and practice. Missing Links is a ciné-poème of flickering, delicate attention that compels our immersion in turn. — Craig Dworkin//. (shrink)

The success of particle detection in high energy physics colliders critically depends on the criteria for selecting a small number of interactions from an overwhelming number that occur in the detector. It also depends on the selection of the exact data to be analyzed and the techniques of analysis. The introduction of automation into the detection process has traded the direct involvement of the physicist at each stage of selection and analysis for the efficient handling of vast amounts of (...) data. This tradeoff, in combination with the organizational changes in laboratories of increasing size and complexity, has resulted in automated and semi-automated systems of detection. Various aspects of the semi-automated regime were greatly diminished in more generic automated systems, but turned out to be essential to a number of surprising discoveries of anomalous processes that led to theoretical breakthroughs, notably the establishment of the Standard Model of particle physics. The automated systems are much more efficient in confirming specific hypothesis in narrow energy domains than in performing broad exploratory searches. Thus, in the main, detection processes relying excessively on automation are more likely to miss potential anomalies and impede potential theoretical advances. I suggest that putting substantially more effort into the study of electron–positron colliders and increasing its funding could minimize the likelihood of missing potential anomalies, because detection in such an environment can be handled by the semi-automated regime—unlike detection in hadron colliders. Despite virtually unavoidable excessive reliance on automated detection in hadron colliders, their development has been deemed a priority because they can operate at currently highest energy levels. I suggest, however, that a focus on collisions at the highest achievable energy levels diverts funds from searches for potential anomalies overlooked due to tradeoffs at the previous energy thresholds. I also note that even in the same collision environment, different research strategies will opt for different tradeoffs and thus achieve different experimental outcomes. Finally, I briefly discuss current searches for anomalous process in the context of the previous analysis. (shrink)

We explore the formal foundations of recent studies comparing aural pattern recognition capabilities of populations of human and non-human animals. To date, these experiments have focused on the boundary between the Regular and Context-Free stringsets. We argue that experiments directed at distinguishing capabilities with respect to the Subregular Hierarchy, which subdivides the class of Regular stringsets, are likely to provide better evidence about the distinctions between the cognitive mechanisms of humans and those of other species. Moreover, the classes of the (...) Subregular Hierarchy have the advantage of fully abstract descriptive (model-theoretic) characterizations in addition to characterizations in more familiar grammar- and automata-theoretic terms. Because the descriptive characterizations make no assumptions about implementation, they provide a sound basis for drawing conclusions about potential cognitive mechanisms from the experimental results. We review the Subregular Hierarchy and provide a concrete set of principles for the design and interpretation of these experiments. (shrink)

Most everyday tasks involve multiple modalities, which raises the question of how the processing of these modalities is coordinated by the cognitive system. In this paper, we focus on the coordination of visual attention and linguistic processing during speaking. Previous research has shown that objects in a visual scene are fixated before they are mentioned, leading us to hypothesize that the scan pattern of a participant can be used to predict what he or she will say. We test this hypothesis (...) using a data set of cued scene descriptions of photo-realistic scenes. We demonstrate that similar scan patterns are correlated with similar sentences, within and between visual scenes; and that this correlation holds for three phases of the language production process (target identification, sentence planning, and speaking). We also present a simple algorithm that uses scan patterns to accurately predict associated sentences by utilizing similarity-based retrieval. (shrink)

Following the formation of disciplines/sciences in different fields of Islamic thought, the specific concepts and terminologies of these disciplines/sciences began to emerge. Then the special meaning and the area of utilization for every concept in each discipline/science were further clarified by compiling specific epistles of definition (ḥudūd), which would contribute to this process of conceptualization. For the terminological meaning of the used concept to be determined primarily and thus for the followed theological/sectarian affiliation to be supported, works belonging to this (...) genre have been written specifically for the field of theology. Especially, the Muʿtazilī theologians undoubtedly made the greatest contribution. Thusly, specific treatises containing theological concepts were compiled by names such as al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār (d. 415/1025), and his students Abū Rashīd al-Nīsābūrī (d. after 420/1029) and Ibn Sharwīn (fl. first half of the Vth/XIth century). Zaydī theologian and jurist Abū’l-Qāsim al-Bustī’s (d. 420/1029) Tahdhīb al-ḥudūd, which has no available copy, is also contemporary to the mentioned works. This tradition found its reflection in the Imāmī-Muʿtazilī line in Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭūsī’s (d. 460/1067) al-Muqaddimah fī l-madkhal ilá ṣināʿat ʿilm al-kalām, which could be seen as a concise theological work in terms of its construct and the explanations which it comprises, and in the work called al-Ḥudūd wa-l-ḥaqāʾiq, which is attributed to al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍá (d. 436/1044). Abū Jaʿfar al-Muqrī al-Nīsābūrī’s (d. mid-VIth/XIIth century [?]) al-Ḥudūd stands out as the most voluminous example in this tradition. The most important work belonging to this genre in the Muʿtazilī tradition, as it is the first among the available works, is the Ḥudūd al-alfāẓ of al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, which is found together with some other important Zaydī-Muʿtazilī works in a compilation discovered by us and thought to be lost until recently. In this treatise, which generally includes theological concepts and partially includes the concepts of Islamic law and the history of sects, al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār has put forward a language-based definition theory. His approach here is in line with the views he put forward on definition in his al-Mughnī. Accordingly, instead of definition (ḥadd) and description (rasm) carried out over five universals in classical logic, he adopted a method of lexical definition based on wording that agrees with the meaning of the concept in question and is clearer than it, and consequently gave a brief definition and explanation of the concept he deals with. This clearly shows that the previous Muʿtazilī theologians’ approach of language-based definition, which was used as an alternative to the conception of Aristotelian definition due to their distanced stance to philosophy was also inherited by al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār. The approach seen in some sources in the period following al-Qāḍī, such as Abū Rashīd al-Nīsābūrī’s al-Ḥudūd, also indicates his influence. (shrink)

In the past, a vast majority of medical assistance in dying patients were elderly patients with cancer who are not suitable for organ donation, making organ donation from such patients a rare event. However, more expansive criteria for MAiD combined with an increased participation of MAiD patients in organ donation is likely to drastically increase the pool of MAiD patients who can serve as organ donors. Previous discussions of ethical issues arising from these trends have not fully addressed difficulties (...) involved in separating decision to end one’s life from the one to donate one’s organs. However, realities of organ donation logistics and human decision making suggest that this separation can be extraordinary difficult. The need to maximise quality of donated organs complicates dying experience of the donor and is likely in tension with the dying experience the patient envisioned when first considering MAiD. Furthermore, the idea that patients will think about MAiD first, and only when firmly decided to end their life, consider organ donation, runs contrary to organ donation policies in some countries as well as end of life and everyday decision making. This opens the door for organ donation to serve as an incentive in MAiD decisions. Dispensing with the simplistic assumption that organ donation can never be a factor in MAiD decisions is, therefore, essential first step to properly addressing ethical issues at hand. (shrink)

The practice of justifying scientific explanations generates argumentative patterns in which several types of arguments may play a role. This paper is aimed at identifying these patterns on the basis of an exploration of the institutional conventions regarding the nature, the shape and the quality of scientific explanations as reflected in the writings of influential philosophers of science. First, a basic pattern for justifying scientific explanations is described. Then, two types of extensions of this pattern are presented. These extensions are (...) derived from philosophical accounts of requirements for the quality of explanations and the choice of the best explanation from a number of candidate explanations respectively. The description of the second extension will make clear how pragmatic argumentation plays a role in argumentative patterns within the scientific domain. (shrink)

In a series of important papers, Galen Strawson has articulated a spectrum of “temporal temperaments,” populated at one end by “Diachronics”, who experience their selves (understood as the “mental entity” they are at this moment) as something that existed in the past and will exist in the future, and at the other end by “Episodics”, who lack any such sense of temporal extension. As a self-declared Episodic, Strawson provides lucid descriptions of what episodicity is like, but cannot furnish a corresponding (...) phenomenology of diachronic self-experience. He further argues that nothing normatively significant depends upon diachronicity, so Episodics can live fully moral (and fully satisfying) lives. I attempt to supply this missing phenomenology of diachronic self-experience using Kierkegaard’s account of “contemporaneity” (samtidighed). Kierkegaard operates with something quite close to Strawson’s “me/me*” (human/self) distinction, yet he nonetheless offers a compelling description of diachronic self-experience that is fully normative in character. I discuss some of the implications of this normativity for Strawson’s claim that there is nothing ethically or psychologically deficient in the Episodic’s self-experience. (shrink)

This paper builds on a previous discussion of Stephen Mumford’s rejection of what he takes to be David Best’s argument for a distinction between purposive and aesthetic sports. That discussion concluded that Mumford’s argument misses its target, but closed by introducing a possible alternative argument, not made by Mumford, that might be thought to have the potential to secure Mumford’s conclusion. This paper considers that alternative argument, namely, the thought that the ascription of psychological predicates conceived of in terms of (...) defeasible criteria that constitute logically good evidence could preserve Best’s claim to be making a logical point while allowing a place for intention in relation to aims and purposes in sport. It is argued that the relationship between rules and intention is such that this alternative argument cannot secure Mumford’s conclusion. (shrink)

The author explains that his background was in experimental psychology but that he wanted to study the whole person and not fragmented psychological processes. He also desired a non-reductionistic method for studying humans. Fortunately he came across the work of Edmund Husserl and discovered in the latter’s thought a way of researching humans that met the criteria he was seeking. Eventually he developed a phenomenological method for researching humans in a psychological way based upon the work of Husserl and (...) Merleau-Ponty. This article briefly describes the method. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:SENECA FALLS INHERITANCE: DISENTANGLING WOMEN, LEGISLATION AND VIOLENCE IN MONFREDO'S HISTORICAL CRIME FICTION Rosemary Erickson Johnsen National Coalition ofIndependent Scholars That men were not prevented by courts or clergy from mistreating their wives meant that, to society's institutions, women had no value. A man could be jailed, even hanged, for stealing another man's horse, but not even reproached for beating his wife. (Miriam Grace Monfredo, Through a Gold Eagle) (...) Miriam Grace Monfredo's feminist genre fiction, her "historymystery " series featuring nineteenth-century librarian Glynis Tryon, offers an opportunity to find a way ofreading literary texts that is not only feminist, but also Girardian. Girard's work provides two clear ways to construct feminist readings directly, without the mediation of overtly feminist theory. First ofthese is Girard's respect for the "quasi-theoretical" potential of literary texts, especially some of those which attend to apparently trivial matters. In Deceit, Desire and the Novel, Girard argues that (male) novelists offer insights unavailable elsewhere, including those scientific fields that claim to know more than everyone else. In its valuing of questions about snobbism, for example, Deceit, Desire and the Novel offers a woman-friendly model. The (male) novelist's question about snobbism is "too frivolous" for (men of) science, but Girard argues that "in his probe of snobbism the novelist is asking himself in his own way just what Rosemary Erickson Johnsen59 might be the hidden springs that make the social mechanism tick" (220). While I regret the fact that Girard's examples and language often ignore women, I believe his conviction that attention to matters socially coded as superficial and frivolous can produce great insight is one feminist critics can appreciate. The second Girardian tool feminists can rely upon is the method of reading texts of persecution described in The Scapegoat. Girard suggests how we might read texts ofpersecution written by naive persecutors in ways that identify with the persecuted and gather the information unintentionally supplied by the authors: "I call those persecutors naive who are still convinced that they are right and who are not so mistrustful as to cover up or censor the fundamental characteristics of their persecution. Such characteristics are either clearly apparent in the text and are directly revealing or they remain hidden and reveal indirectly" (8). Monfredo's crime novels, set in the mid-nineteenth century and focusing on such disenfranchised groups of citizens as women, slaves, Native Americans, and free African-Americans, depend for their verisimilitude on her ability to read historical sources and literary predecessors in just such a way. Accuracy requires that Monfredo's works be categorized as feminist historical crime novels, however awkward such a lengthy description may be. Her novels observe the principles not only of both genres—historical fiction and detective fiction—but also the political position offeminism, and they meet these multiple demands with considerable skill. Furthermore, resolution in crime fiction depends upon the law; working within that tradition, Monfredo is called upon to seek solutions within the system, to look for justice as the result ofa proper functioning ofthe legal and social systems. Information gathered, whether by the official representatives ofthe law or by amateurs, is turned over to the authorities. While her novels clearly respect that tradition, they also point out some limits to the judicial system's ability to contain violence. Girard's model ofits functioning, as described in Violence and the Sacred, depends upon an equality that whole segments of the society Monfredo is depicting do not in fact enjoy: "The judicial authority is beholden to no one. It is thus at the disposal ofeveryone" (23). Ifwomen cannot own property, enter into contracts or sit on juries, in what sense is the law at their disposal? Monfredo's exploration ofthis question takes its place alongside Girard's explanation of the legal system's proper functioning; ifhis theory reveals how it works when all are enfranchised, her fiction suggests some ofthe consequences that result from the existence of disenfranchised subjects. 60'Seneca Falls Inheritance' Our Seneca Falls Inheritance In her first book, Seneca Falls Inheritance (1992), Monfredo offers a theory for the reduction of violence against women: provide women with complete legal equality. The... (shrink)

BackgroundCurrently, most people who might need mental health care services do not receive them due to a number of reasons. Many of these reasons can be overcome by telepsychology, in other words, the use of ICT technologies for therapy ; given that it facilitates access to specialized interventions. In fact, telepsychology is currently offered as an active service in many psychotherapy centers. However, its usage, how it is perceived, and who uses it are still largely unknown.ObjectiveThe aim of this study (...) was to determine if any pattern exists in the usage of telepsychology and face-to-face psychology, to clarify people’s perception of telepsychology in terms of the advantages, barriers and efficacy of online psychotherapy, and to examine usage patterns in terms of individual characteristics and identify patients’ profiles.MethodsAn online survey was conducted on a convenience sample of 514 subjects recluted by using an online advertisement. The inclusion criteria were: to be older than 18 years old and to answer completely the questionnaire. Cluster analysis, ANOVAs, and discriminant analysis were performed to test our research objectives.ResultsThree usage clusters were found: face-to-face psychotherapy ; non-therapy ; and combined face-to-face psychotherapy and telepsychology. In addition, the perception of telepsychology varied among usage clusters, but a common perception emerged about the main telepsychology advantages, barriers and efficacy. Finally, the results showed that personal characteristics differentiated people in each of these clusters.ConclusionThe most common form of access to psychotherapy is the face-to-face form but the second way of delivery was a combination between face to face and online psychotherapy. People who combine face to face with online psychotherapy perceives this last as more efficient and with less barriers to access. Finally, some characteristic as eHealth experience and sociodemographic variables can help to identify people that will attend telepsychology initiatives. These clusters provide insight into opportunities for face-to-face and online patient engagement strategies. (shrink)

In this article, it is shown that, following the precedent set in particular by Marinus' "Life of Proclus", Damascius, in his "Life of Isidore", uses biography so as to illustrate philosophical progress through the Neoplatonic scale of virtues. Damascius applies this scale, however, to a wide range of figures belonging to pagan philosophical circles of the fifth century AD: they show different degrees and forms of progress in this scale and thus provide an edificatory panorama of patterns of philosophical perfection. (...) Each level of the scale of virtues is shown to be exemplified in Damascius' biographies. It is suggested that few, in Damascius' opinion, reached the highest levels of virtue and that philosophical decline is intimated in his descriptions of his contemporaries. (shrink)

In “Real Patterns” Daniel Dennett developed an argument about the reality of beliefs on the basis of an analogy with patterns and noise. Here I develop Dennett’s analogy into an argument for descriptivism, the view that belief reports do no specify belief contents but merely describe what someone believes, and show that this view is also supported by empirical evidence. No description can do justice to the richness and specificity or “noisiness” of what someone believes, and the same belief can (...) be described by different sentences or propositions (which is illustrated by Dennett’s analogy, some Gettier cases, and Frege’s puzzle), but in some contexts some of these competing descriptions are misleading or even false. Faithful (or truthful) description must be guided by a principle (or principles) related to the principle of charity: belief descriptions should not attribute irrationality to the believer or have other kinds of “deviant” implications. (shrink)

Georg Lukács wrote that "there is autonomy and 'autonomy.' The one is a moment of life itself, the elevation of its richness and contradictory unity; the other is a rigidification, a barren self-seclusion, a self-imposed banishment from the dynamic overall connection." Though Lukács' concern was with the conditions for the possibility of art, his distinction also serves as an apt description of the way that Hegel and Hegelians have contrasted their own interpretations of self-determination with that of Kant. But it (...) has always been difficult to see how elevation is possible without seclusion, or how rigidification can be avoided without making the boundaries of the self so malleable that its autonomy looks like a mere cover for the power of external forces. Yeomans explores Hegel's own attempts to grapple with this problem against the background of Kant's attempts, in his theory of virtue, to understand the way that morally autonomous agents can be robust individuals with qualitatively different projects, personal relations, and commitments that are nonetheless infused with a value that demands respect. In a reading that disentangles a number of different threads in Kant's approach, Yeomans shows how Hegel reweaves these threads around the central notions of talent and interest to produce a tapestry of self-determination. Yeomans argues that the result is a striking pluralism that identifies three qualitatively distinct forms of agency or accountability and sees each of these forms of agency as being embodied in different social groups in different ways. But there is nonetheless a dynamic unity to the forms because they can all be understood as practical attempts to solve the problem of autonomy, and each is thus worthy of respect even from the perspective of other solutions."Everyone recognizes the importance of Hegel's critique of Kantian morality as empty, but until now there has not been a fully worked out presentation of how Hegel's views in his discussion of Sittlichkeit actually provide the missing content. Yeomans has finally provided us with a reconstruction of Hegel's mature position that makes good on all the promissory notes that Hegel gives in his famous descriptions of his alternative to Kantian ethics. Yeomans offers a compelling account of Hegel's view of individuality, societal differentiation and its roots in Kantian and Fichtean moral theory. The book will be a major contribution to the scholarship on Hegel's practical philosophy." - Dean Moyar, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University -/- "Yeomans' book is a subtle, detailed and original explication of some key ideas having to do with how Hegel's general philosophy of action relates to his social and political philosophy. It is attentive to Hegel's texts, and it ties its discussions into all the relevant contemporary themes in philosophy. It is very ambitious in its attempt to make Hegel's theory into a real competitor to other views that are currently in wide play in the philosophical world. It will very likely become one of the key texts in the secondary literature on Hegel." - Terry Pinkard, University Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown University. (shrink)

In discussion of mechanisms, philosophers often debate about whether quantitative descriptions of generalizations or qualitative descriptions of operations are explanatorily fundamental. I argue that these debates have erred by conflating the explanatory roles of generalizations and patterns. Patterns are types of variations within or between quantities in a mechanism over time or across conditions. While these patterns must often be represented in addition to descriptions of operations in order to explain a phenomenon, they are not equivalent to generalizations because their (...) explanatory role does not depend on any specific facts about their scope or domain of invariance. (shrink)

The research focuses on the patterns of traditional religious and cultural practices of the Idoma People of Nigeria. The study also seeks to investigate the cultural beliefs and practices of the Idoma traditional society which were affected by the advent of Christianity in the area. Some of the cultural beliefs and practices of the Idoma people before the advent of Christianity will be examined, as well as the people response to the new faith and the propelling factors behind the responses (...) of the people. The study adopted qualitative phenomenological research design and descriptive method of data analysis. Personal interview forms a primary source of data collection while the secondary source includes library sources. The study reveals that the advent of Christianity in the Idoma traditional society had some impact and consequences on their traditional and cultural practices. Some of the Idoma beliefs and practices affected include ancestor veneration, polygamous marriage, burial rites, widowhood practices, naming ceremony among others which are no longer practiced the way it used to be practiced before the advent of Christianity. The study recommends among other things that, there should be a synergy between Idoma traditional beliefs and practices and Christianity for peaceful co-existence, progress and developments in the area. (shrink)

Summary Sexual communication in most species of fireflies is a male±female dialogue of precisely timed flashes of bioluminescent light. The biochemical reactions underlying firefly bioluminescence have been known for 30 years and are now exploited in biomedical assays and other commercial applications. Several aspects of flash regulation are also understood: flash rhythm is controlled by a central pattern generator, and individual flashes are neurally triggered, with octopamine serving as the transmitter. The molecular oxygen needed by the biochemical reactants is delivered (...) by a network of tracheal arborizations extending throughout the light organ (lantern).However, the actual means by which oxygen quickly reaches the reactants packaged within specialized photocytes and the specific event(s) triggered by neural action have not been identified; termination of axons away from the photocytes has exacerbated the latter problem. A recent paper(1) by a consortium of cell and evolutionary biologists, however, reports that nitric oxide (NO), manufactured and released in response to neuronal discharge, is the missing link by which neural action in the firefly lantern yields a sudden flash of light. BioEssays 23:992±995, 2001. ß 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

It is common for scholars sympathetic to religion – from Friedrich Schleiermacher to the present – to describe the modern critics of religious experience as reductionist. By this they mean these critics do not respect religion for what it is; they rather ‘attempt to assimilate religion to nonreligious phenomena’,1 say, primitive science or metaphysics. Needless to say, these scholars consider this incorrect.Into this scene strides Wayne Proudfoot. In his award‐winning book Religious Experience2 he sets out to scrutinize this accusation and (...) rehabilitate the modern critics. He dismisses this accusation as a protective strategy to render religious claims immune to rational critique. His rehabilitation program is based on a distinction he draws between two kinds of reduction – descriptive and explanatory. This distinction has so caught the imagination of philosophers that it has found its way into textbooks.3 On the other hand, the book is also controversial; needless to say, its claims are problematic for believers.The purpose of my paper is not to offer a comprehensive critique of his book, but only of his methodology, or the lack thereof, where methodology is understood as an integrated set of tools used for inquiry. I argue that although he proposes description and explanation as appropriate instruments for the study of religious experience, the two do not constitute a methodology, because his descriptions play no role in his explanations; rather, both go their separate ways. I argue that explanation must be guided by description. Moreover, I distinguish three kinds of inquiry, each calling for a different kind of description. The kind of description Proudfoot recommends is appropriate for genetic inquiry into how particular experiences came about, but not for a conceptual inquiry into the constitutive elements of religious experience. He knows lots of trees (particular experiences), but misses the wood (the nature of religious experience). Thus my title.The paper is divided into three parts. First is a brief presentation of Proudfoot's thesis. A second part analyses three different kinds of inquiry; it shows that genetic and epistemic explanations are logically independent and irreducible one to another. These different types of inquiry call for distinct types of description, and these descriptions in turn guide the explanation that will be considered satisfactory. The context‐sensitivity of descriptions, and their relation to explanation is dealt with in the final part. Let us start with Proudfoot's contention. (shrink)

The article concentrates on the analyses of the content characteristics of the users’ activity patterns functioning in the media ecosystem. Media ecosystem is viewed by the author as information environment of a modern individual which dialectically connects the users’ media activity practices as well as the institutional conditions of their realization. The author refers to such key practices of users’ activity in the media ecosystem as media consumption and media production, notably an important factor of such practices realization are definite (...) patterns and normals, which are the behavior models articulates in the media ecosystem environment. It is shown that these patterns and normals can be localized in such media sources as the news in mass media, fiction texts and program manifestations, technological regulations (exploitation rules, access procedures etc.), society knowledge (etiquette, etc.) of the network community. On the basis of the author’s sociological research, carried out using the content analyses (N=300) method (different types of media sources in the modern media ecosystem were studied), peculiarities of actual patterns and normals of users’ activity in media ecosystem are analyzed. The author shows how the imperative character of the patterns and normals declared reveals in a number of characteristics that are the criteria of the analyses. As a result of the research it was found out that the level of imperativeness of articulated patterns and normals is defined not only by their immediate localization (the type of media source where they were placed) but also by the referentiality of these normals to the unique experience of the users and the prevailing types of media activity. (shrink)

This paper serves as an introduction to the special issue on argumentative patterns in discourse, more in particular on argumentative patterns with pragmatic argumentation as a main argument that are prototypical of argumentative discourse in certain communicative activity types in the political, the legal, the medical, and the academic domain. It situates the studies of argumentative patterns reported in these papers in the pragma-dialectical research program. In order to be able to do so, it is first explained in which consecutive (...) stages the pragma-dialectical theorizing has developed, what the study of argumentative patterns involves, and why the identification of argumentative patterns represents a vital stage in the development of pragma-dialectics. The description of the theoretical innovations that are introduced and the exposition of their relationship with the standard and extended pragma-dialectical theory create a conceptual and terminological framework for understanding the background and the rationale of the current research projects. (shrink)

Based on interviews with climate-change activists and NGO workers in Finland and Malawi, this article reconsiders the ways in which the coordination of identity projects and action is approached in social movement scholarship. Rather than beginning with personal and collective identities, we take our cue from recent work by Laurent Thévenot and trace actors’ forms of engagement—the various ways actors produce commonality. As we show, doing so in vastly different social contexts allows us to see permutations in such forms afforded (...) by participation in a transnational social movement and to identify patterns of collective action that we would otherwise be apt to miss. Finnish activists narrated their activities by way of engaging in the forms of the common good driving the climate movement, but coordinated various situations also through engagement in familiarity, comfort, and ease. Malawian activists and NGO employees also spoke of the common good the movements worked to achieve, but principally created common ground by engaging in shared individual choices and projects, which were jointly consecrated by fellow NGO participants. Ultimately, we argue that tracing forms of engagement enables more in-depth understanding of what is at stake when people act together in social movement organizations: moving away from collective and personal identity to patterns of engagement allows a vantage point into the processes through which commonality is created and generates new hypotheses regarding the coordination of action in social movement organizations. (shrink)

This paper attempts to identify behavioral patterns and compare their average success considering several criteria of bounded rationality. Experimentally observed choice behavior in various decision tasks is used to assess heterogeneity in how individual participants respond to 15 randomly ordered portfolio choices, each of which is experienced twice. Treatments differ in granting probability information and in eliciting aspirations. Since in our setting neither other regarding concerns nor risk attitude matter and probability of the binary chance move is choice irrelevant, (...) categorizing decision types relies on parameter dependence and choice adaptations. We find that most participants reduce systematically sub-optimality when following the identified criteria. (shrink)

Plato famously promised to complement the Sophist and the Statesman with another work on a third sort of expert, the philosopher--but we do not have this final dialogue. Mary Louise Gill argues that Plato promised the Philosopher, but did not write it, in order to stimulate his audience and encourage his readers to work out, for themselves, the portrait it would have contained. The Sophist and Statesman are themselves members of a larger series starting with the Theaetetus, Plato's investigation of (...) knowledge, and the whole series relies on the Parmenides, the second part of which presents a philosophical exercise, introduced as the first step in a larger philosophical program. Gill contends that the dialogues leading up to the missing Philosopher, though they reach some substantive conclusions, are philosophical exercises of various sorts designed to train students in dialectic, the philosopher's method; and that a second version of the Parmenides exercise, closely patterned on it, spans parts of the Theaetetus and Sophist and brings the philosopher into view. This is the exercise about being, the subject-matter studied by Plato's philosopher. Plato hides the pieces of the puzzle and its solution in plain sight, forcing his students (and modern readers) to dig out the pieces and reconstruct the project. Gill reveals how, in finding the philosopher through the exercise, the student becomes a philosopher by mastering his methods. She shows that the target of Plato's exercise is internally related to its pedagogical purpose. (shrink)

The philosophical conception of mechanistic explanation is grounded on a limited number of canonical examples. These examples provide an overly narrow view of contemporary scientific practice, because they do not reflect the extent to which the heuristic strategies and descriptive practices that contribute to mechanistic explanation have evolved beyond the well-known methods of decomposition, localization, and pictorial representation. Recent examples from evolutionary robotics and network approaches to biology and neuroscience demonstrate the increasingly important role played by computer simulations and (...) mathematical representations in the epistemic practices of mechanism discovery and mechanism description. These examples also indicate that the scope of mechanistic explanation must be re-examined: With new and increasingly powerful methods of discovery and description comes the possibility of describing mechanisms far more complex than traditionally assumed. (shrink)

This paper investigates the emotive (or expressive) meaning of words commonly referred to as “loaded” or “emotive,” which include slurs, derogative or pejorative words, and ethical terms. We claim that emotive meaning can be reinterpreted from a pragmatic and argumentative perspective, which can account for distinct aspects of ethical terms, including the possibility of being modified and its cancellability. Emotive meaning is explained as a defeasible and automatic or automatized evaluative and intended inference commonly associated with the use of specific (...) terms, which can be represented and assessed considering its logical structure and its defeasibility conditions. This automatic inference is conceived as part of the connotation of an ethical term, and is not necessarily stable. By means of quasi-definitions, it is possible to modify the emotive meaning while maintaining the descriptive one, automaticizing the inferences drawn from an ethical word. Through examples drawn from the recent US presidential campaign, we show how re-contextualization and emotive contexts can affect emotive meaning. (shrink)