Christopher D. Stone has claimed that natural objects can and should have rights. I accept Stone’s premise that the possession of rights is tied to the possession of interests; however, I argue that the concept of a natural object needs a more careful analysis than is given by Stone. Not everything that Stone calls a natural object is an object “naturally.” Some must be taken as artificial rather than as natural. Thistype of object cannot be said to have intrinsic interests (...) and hence cannot be given rights that can protect “its own sake”-which is the sort of right that Stone focuses on. Further, there are other sorts of natural objects which, although they are objects “naturally,” cannot meaningfully be said to have intrinsic interests, and thus cannot have the sorts of rights that Stone is concerned with. Finally, there are other sorts of natural objects which are objects naturally and which have intrinsic interests, but which are not proper candidates for the possession of rights. The prerequisites for being “owed” rights are the possession of intrinsic interests and the capability to suffer when those interests are interfered with or denied or threatened. (shrink)

Scientists, more than ever before, are interested in the logic of science, which has been stimulated by various interrelated circumstances including the development of the postulation method in mathematics, the unprecedented expansion of modern technology, and recent advances in the biological, psychological, and anthropological sciences that have created a demand for more effective theory and system construction. In this book, an attempt is made to free the logic of science from the historical epistemologies and ontologies. The elimination of spiritistic entities (...) enables the logician to study the evolution of scientific constructs from the actual behavior of persons with objects and events. The naturalistic study of scientific work and its systemic products is based upon Interbehavioral Psychology, which demands that the scientist be studied in his various contacts with objects and processes, both in the field and laboratory. (shrink)

The prevalence of dementia is increasing with the ever-growing population of older adults. Non-pharmacological, music-based interventions, including sensory stimulation, were reported by the Lancet Commission in 2020 to be the first-choice approach for managing the behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia. Low frequency sinusoidal vibration interventions, related to music interventions through their core characteristics, may offer relief for these symptoms. Despite increasing attention on the effectiveness of auditory music interventions and music therapy for managing dementia, this has not included low (...) frequency vibration. This scoping review, following the JBI methodology guidelines, was conducted to investigate participants’ responses to both sound and mechanical vibration, the characteristics of the delivered interventions, methodological challenges, and the specifics of the research experiments reported. An extensive search was conducted in BMC, CINAHL, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, EMBASE, ERIC, MEDLINE, Pedro, ProQuest Central, PsycINFO, Scopus, and Web of Science. Current Controlled Trials, Clinical Trials, and Google Scholar were also searched as well as a hand search in relevant journals. Studies on adults with all types of dementia, investigating tactile low frequency sound or mechanical vibration in any context were considered. Data from eight full-length studies were extracted using the data extraction table developed by the authors and were included in the analysis and critical appraisal. Issues in quality related to, for example, control groups and blinding. Few studies addressed participants’ subjective responses to the interventions. Reporting on the intervention characteristics was unclear. It appeared more frequent sessions led to better outcomes and home-based interventions potentially addressing the issue of access and feasibility. Future research should include neuroimaging to measure and confirm the hypothesised mechanism of cerebral coherence. Standardised reporting of intervention characteristics is also needed to ensure replicability of the experiments. Higher quality research is needed to investigate the impact and effect of low frequency vibration for the symptoms of dementia and compare outcomes in meta-syntheses. (shrink)

"In this book, the second edition of the author's Principles of Psychology, he continues his attempt to forge naturalistic constructs (descriptions, interpretations) for psychological events. Despite the enormous development of psychology in the interval, the author still stresses the fact that psychological events are in all respects as natural as chemical reactions, electromagnetic radiation, or gravitational attraction. The attempt to transform psychology into a natural science is doubly motivated. First, there is the need to develop valid constructs for an important (...) series of happenings. Second, such results smooth the way for workers in other sciences such as physics, physiology, and anthropology in their inevitable encounter with psychological issues"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Two basic theses underlie this work. The first, the specificity theorem, signifies that logic is essentially concerned with specific events and not with universal and transcendent systems. The second, the interbehavioral theorem, implies that no matter how logic is defined, it entails a psychological dimension that must be taken into account.