Currently more than half of the world’s population lives in cities. This is expected to rise to more than two-thirds by mid-century. Thus, our economic, social, and environmental challenges mostly and increasingly play out in urban settings. How can cities be strengthened to address the growing challenges they face? This special issue addresses the ethical implications of revitalizing urban environments, and the roles that diversity and inclusion, as well as social innovation, play in this process. The five papers herein show (...) that it is not easy to strengthen our cities, but with the right policies, political and corporate leadership, and depth of community grounding in ethical principles, it is possible. In this editorial essay, we summarize the contributions of each of these papers to this important conversation, clarify the questions that remain, and offer directions for future research. (shrink)

Religion and spirituality are important aspects of the lives of most psychotherapy clients. Unfortunately, many psychotherapists lack the training to effectively and ethically address these issues with their clients. At times, religious or spiritual concerns may be relevant to the reasons clients seek treatment, either as areas of conflict or distress for clients or as sources of strength and support that the psychotherapist may access to enhance the benefit of psychotherapy. This article reviews persistent ethical issues and dilemmas relevant to (...) providing psychotherapy to clients for whom issues of religion and spirituality are clinically relevant. Ethical considerations include assessment, advertising and public statements, informed consent, competence, boundary issues and multiple relationships, cooperation with other professionals, and how to effectively integrate religious and spiritual interventions into ongoing psychotherapy. A decision-making process is presented to guide psychotherapists in their clinical work with clients for whom religious and spiritual issues are salient or clearly linked to their presenting problems. (shrink)

Many mental health clinicians participate in the use of social media in their professional and personal lives. There are a number of ethics issues and challenges associated with this social media use, particularly with regard to self-disclosure. In this comment, key issues relevant to social media use and self-disclosure are addressed including relevant ethics guidance for participating in social media; social media use, boundaries, and multiple relationships; informed consent and the social media policy; and preparation of our next generation for (...) working ethically and effectively in the digital world. These challenges are examined and recommendations for addressing each of them in a thoughtful and proactive manner are made with a focus on each mental health professional’s overarching ethics obligations to those we serve. (shrink)

Starting out : ethics issues in beginning a practice -- Clinical practice -- Documentation and record keeping -- Dealing with third parties and protecting confidentiality -- Financial decisions -- Staff training and office policies -- Advertising and marketing -- Continuing professional development -- Leaving a practice -- Closing thoughts.

Religion and spirituality are important aspects of the lives of most psychotherapy clients. Unfortunately, many psychotherapists lack the training to effectively and ethically address these issues with their clients. At times, religious or spiritual concerns may be relevant to the reasons clients seek treatment, either as areas of conflict or distress for clients or as sources of strength and support that the psychotherapist may access to enhance the benefit of psychotherapy. This article reviews persistent ethical issues and dilemmas relevant to (...) providing psychotherapy to clients for whom issues of religion and spirituality are clinically relevant. Ethical considerations include assessment, advertising and public statements, informed consent, competence, boundary issues and multiple relationships, cooperation with other professionals, and how to effectively integrate religious and spiritual interventions into ongoing psychotherapy. A decision-making process is presented to guide psychotherapists in their clinical work with clients for whom religious and spiritual issues are salient or clearly linked to their presenting problems. (shrink)

Most, if not all, psychologists have served as teaching or research assistants during graduate school, been instructed by teaching assistants, or both. As both faculty and students themselves, graduate assistants are faced with several dilemmas for which they typically have little preparation or guidance. These issues are explored in the context of the existing literature on multiple relationships in academic settings. Recommendations are made for graduate assistants, their faculty supervisors or mentors, and administrators to proactively address and confront these challenges (...) in a manner consistent with the profession of psychology's ethics code and to minimize the potential for harm to those we are entrusted to teach. (shrink)

The current investigation examines the incidence of clients telling their psychotherapists of committing violent crimes for which they have not been prosecuted. Thirteen percent of the psychologists surveyed indicated that on at least one occasion a client self-disclosed to them during a psychotherapy session that he/she had murdered someone, not including the killing of another person in the line of duty in the military or as a public peace officer. One third of the psychologists had clients self-disclose an unprosecuted incident (...) of a sexual assault, and more than two thirds had clients self-disclose an unprosecuted incident of a physical assault during a psychotherapy session. Data are reported on psychotherapists' views of the impact of such disclosures on the psychotherapy relationship, adequacy of being informed regarding legal obligations after hearing such reports of violence, and adequacy of graduate preparation to deal with these clinical situations. (shrink)

Drawing on previous models of anxiety, intermediate memory, the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, and goal-directed behaviour, a neuropsychological hypothesis is proposed for the generation of the contents of consciousness. It is suggested that these correspond to the outputs of a comparator that, on a moment-by-moment basis, compares the current state of the organism's perceptual world with a predicted state. An outline is given of the information-processing functions of the comparator system and of the neural systems which mediate them. The hypothesis (...) appears to be able to account for a number of key features of the contents of consciousness. However, it is argued that neitherthis nor any existing comparable hypothesis is yet able to explain why the brain should generate conscious experience of any kind at all. (shrink)

From the early 1960s until his death, French philosopher Gilles Deleuze wrote many influential works on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. One of Deleuze's main philosophical projects was a systematic inversion of the traditional relationship between identity and difference. This Deleuzian philosophy of difference is the subject of Jeffrey A. Bell's Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos. Bell argues that Deleuze's efforts to develop a philosophy of difference are best understood by exploring both Deleuze's claim to be a (...) Spinozist, and Nietzsche's claim to have found in Spinoza an important precursor. Beginning with an analysis of these claims, Bell shows how Deleuze extends and transforms concepts at work in Spinoza and Nietzsche to produce a philosophy of difference that promotes and, in fact, exemplifies the notions of dynamic systems and complexity theory. With these concepts at work, Deleuze constructs a philosophical approach that avoids many of the difficulties that linger in other attempts to think about difference. Bell uses close readings of Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, and Whitehead to illustrate how Deleuze's philosophy is successful in this regard and to demonstrate the importance of the historical tradition for Deleuze. Far from being a philosopher who turns his back on what is taken to be a mistaken metaphysical tradition, Bell argues that Deleuze is best understood as a thinker who endeavoured to continue the work of traditional metaphysics and philosophy. (shrink)

A model of the neuropsychology of anxiety is proposed. The model is based in the first instance upon an analysis of the behavioural effects of the antianxiety drugs in animals. From such psychopharmacologi-cal experiments the concept of a “behavioural inhibition system” has been developed. This system responds to novel stimuli or to those associated with punishment or nonreward by inhibiting ongoing behaviour and increasing arousal and attention to the environment. It is activity in the BIS that constitutes anxiety and that (...) is reduced by antianxiety drugs. The effects of the antianxiety drugs in the brain also suggest hypotheses concerning the neural substrate of anxiety. Although the benzodiazepines and barbiturates facilitate the effects of γ-aminobutyrate, this is insufficient to explain their highly specific behavioural effects. Because of similarities between the behavioural effects of certain lesions and those of the antianxiety drugs, it is proposed that these drugs reduce anxiety by impairing the functioning of a widespread neural system including the septo-hippocampal system, the Papez circuit, the prefrontal cortex, and ascending monoaminergic and cholinergic pathways which innervate these forebrain structures. Analysis of the functions of this system suggests that it acts as a comparator: it compares predicted to actual sensory events and activates the outputs of the BIS when there is a mismatch or when the predicted event is aversive. Suggestions are made as to the functions of particular pathways within this overall brain system. The resulting theory is applied to the symptoms and treatment of anxiety in man, its relations to depression, and the personality of individuals who are susceptible to anxiety or depression. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: 1.What is a Concept? -- 2.Why Philosophy? -- 3.How to Become a Philosopher -- 4.Putting Philosophy in its Place -- 5.Philosophy and Science -- 6.Philosophy and Logic -- 7.Philosophy and Art.

We consider how cue-reading, sensory-manipulation, and signaling games may initially evolve from ritualized decisions and how more complex games may evolve from simpler games by polymerization, template transfer, and modular composition. Modular composition is a process that combines simpler games into more complex games. Template transfer, a process by which a game is appropriated to a context other than the one in which it initially evolved, is one mechanism for modular composition. And polymerization is a particularly salient example of modular (...) composition where simpler games evolve to form more complex chains. We also consider how the evolution of new capacities by modular composition may be more efficient than evolving those capacities from basic decisions. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 54, Issue 5, Page 1278-1305, October 2020.

In response to the preceding research report by Professor Steele, television news director Jeffrey Marks suggests that TV news photographers operate in a world not entirely of their own making. They are often treated as pieces of equipment whose insights and judgments are not taken into consideration when newscasts are produced. Seeing the world through a two?inch black and white viewfinder causes some distorted perceptions of reality and a certain detachment from ethical decision making. The author, chairman of the (...) Radio?Television News Directors Association's ethics commutee, offers some suggestions for correcting the ethical morass. (shrink)

It is shown in this article that the two sides of an equation in the medieval Arabic algebra are aggregations of the algebraic “numbers” (powers) with no operations present. Unlike an expression such as our 3x + 4, the Arabic polynomial “three things and four dirhams” is merely a collection of seven objects of two different types. Ideally, the two sides of an equation were polynomials so the Arabic algebraists preferred to work out all operations of the enunciation to a (...) problem before stating an equation. Some difficult problems which involve square roots and divisions cannot be handled nicely by this basic method, so we do find square roots of polynomials and expressions of the form “A divided by B” in some equations. But rather than initiate a reconsideration of the notion of equation, these developments were used only for particularly complex problems. Also, the algebraic notation practiced in the Maghreb in the later middle ages was developed with the “aggregations” interpretation in mind, so it had no noticeable impact on the concept of polynomial. Arabic algebraists continued to solve problems by working operations before setting up an equation to the end of the medieval period. (shrink)

In “A Virtue Ethics Critique of Ethical Dimensions of Behavioral Economics,” Professor Daryl Koehn criticizes the field of behavioral economics. She argues that behavioral economists ignore many important factors that affect how people make decisions, that their results are derived from experiments where subjects make choices in overly restrictive, artificial, and thin contexts that do not capture the richness of reality, and that the approach brings up psychological motivations that affect behavior in a piecemeal, ad hoc way that does not (...) capture the overall tapestry of the factors that influence the choices that we make. In this comment, I offer responses to many of these criticisms, and note where I think we have common ground. (shrink)

I argue that a strong mind–body dualism is required of any formulation of quantum mechanics that satisfies a relatively weak set of explanatory constraints. Dropping one or more of these constraints may allow one to avoid the commitment to a mind–body dualism but may also require a commitment to a physical–physical dualism that is at least as objectionable. Ultimately, it is the preferred basis problem that pushes both collapse and no-collapse theories in the direction of a strong dualism in resolving (...) the quantum measurement problem. Addressing this problem illustrates how the construction and evaluation of explanatorily rich physical theories are inextricably tied to the evaluation of traditional philosophical issues. (shrink)

Everett (1957a, b, 1973) relative-state formulation of quantum mechanics has often been taken to involve a metaphysical commitment to the existence of many splitting worlds each containing physical copies of observers and the objects they observe. While there was earlier talk of splitting worlds in connection with Everett, this is largely due to DeWitt’s (Phys Today 23:30–35, 1970) popular presentation of the theory. While the thought of splitting worlds or parallel universes has captured the popular imagination, Everett himself favored the (...) language of elements, branches, or relative states in describing his theory. The result is that there is no mention of splitting worlds or parallel universes in any of Everett’s published work. Everett, however, did write of splitting observers and was willing to adopt the language of many worlds in conversation with people who were themselves using such language. While there is evidence that Everett was not entirely comfortable with talk of many worlds, it does not seem to have mattered much to him what language one used to describe pure wave mechanics. This was in part a result of Everett’s empirical understanding of the cognitive status of his theory. (shrink)

Introduction -- 1. Problem of the New -- 2. Problem of Relations -- 3. Problem of Emergence -- 4. Problem of One and Many -- 5. Plato and the Third Man Argument -- 6. Bradley and the Problem of Relations -- 7. Moore, Russell and the Birth of Analytic Philosophy -- 8. Russell and Deleuze on Leibniz -- 9. On Problematic Fields -- 10. Kant and Problematic Ideas -- 11. Armstrong and Lewis on the Problem of One and Many -- (...) 12. Determinables and Determinates -- 13. The Limits of Representational Thought -- 14. Learning from a Cup of Coffee -- 15. Carnap and the Fate of Metaphysics -- 16. Truth and Relevance -- Conclusion. (shrink)

Jeffrey A. Bell here presents a finely constructed survey of the contemporary continental philosophers, focusing on how they have dealt with the problem of difference.

Insofar as empirical inquiry involves the coevolution of descriptive language and theoretical commitments, a satisfactory model of empirical knowledge should describe the coordinated evolution of both language and theory. But since we do not know what conceptual resources we might need to express our future theories or to provide our best future faithful descriptions of the world, we do not now know even what the space of future descriptive options might be. One strategy for addressing this shifting-resource problem is to (...) track the predictive and linguistic dispositions of inquirers rather than to track their theories and conceptual resources directly. Sender-predictor games, a variant of Skyrms–Lewis sender-receiver games, provide very simple models for the coordinated coevolution of predictive and linguistic dispositions. Such models explain how it is possible for (1) predictive and descriptive dispositions of inquirers to coevolve, (2) term-wise incommensurable, but nevertheless descriptively faithful languages, to sequentially evolve, and (3) a sort of underdetermination to occur where inquirers might satisfy their descriptive and predictive aims by revising their linguistic dispositions, their theoretical dispositions, or both. Such models also provide an elementary characterization of what it might mean for descriptions of the world to be faithful and hence for empirical inquiry to be successful. In doing so they provide a relatively weak, but perfectly clear, endogenous account of epistemic norms. (shrink)

We present here a hierarchical model for the evolution of compositional language. The model has the structure of a two-sender/one-receiver Lewis signaling game augmented with executive agents who m...

This paper concerns how rule-following behavior might evolve in the context of a variety of Skyrms–Lewis signaling game, how such rules might subsequently evolve to be used in new contexts, and how such appropriation allows for the composition of evolved rules. We will also consider how the composition of simpler rules to form more complex rules may be significantly more efficient than evolving the complex rules directly. And we will review an example of rule following by pinyon and scrub jays (...) as an illustration of the appropriation of a rule to a new context :142–150, 2013a; Barrett, Philos Sci, 2014). The proposal here is that the composition of rules might occur in a way that is precisely analogous to such simple appropriation. Finally, we will briefly consider how any finite truth-functional operation might evolve by the sequential appropriation of simpler rules. (shrink)

Hugh Everett III proposed his relative-state formulation of pure wave mechanics as a solution to the quantum measurement problem. He sought to address the theory’s determinate record and probability problems by showing that, while counterintuitive, pure wave mechanics was nevertheless empirically faithful and hence empirical acceptable. We will consider what Everett meant by empirical faithfulness. The suggestion will be that empirical faithfulness is well understood as a weak variety of empirical adequacy. The thought is that the very idea of empirical (...) adequacy might be renegotiated in the context of a new physical theory given the theory’s other virtues. Everett’s argument for pure wave mechanics provides a concrete example of such a renegotiation. (shrink)

ArgumentFrom the time of al-Khwārizmī in the ninth century to the beginning of the sixteenth century algebraists did not allow irrational numbers to serve as coefficients. To multiply$\sqrt {18} $byx, for instance, the result was expressed as the rhetorical equivalent of$\sqrt {18{x^2}} $. The reason for this practice has to do with the premodern concept of a monomial. The coefficient, or “number,” of a term was thought of as how many of that term are present, and not as the scalar (...) multiple that we work with today. Then, in sixteenth-century Europe, a few algebraists began to allow for irrational coefficients in their notation. Christoff Rudolff was the first to admit them in special cases, and subsequently they appear more liberally in Cardano, Scheubel, Bombelli, and others, though most algebraists continued to ban them. We survey this development by examining the texts that show irrational coefficients and those that argue against them. We show that the debate took place entirely in the conceptual context of premodern, “cossic” algebra, and persisted in the sixteenth century independent of the development of the new algebra of Viète, Decartes, and Fermat. This was a formal innovation violating prevailing concepts that we propose could only be introduced because of the growing autonomy of notation from rhetorical text. (shrink)

Because of the conceptual difficulties it faces, quantum mechanics provides a salient example of how alternative metaphysical commitments may clarify our understanding of a physical theory and the explanations it provides. Here we will consider how postulating alternative quantum worlds in the context of Hugh Everett III’s pure wave mechanics may serve to explain determinate measurement records and the standard quantum statistics. We will focus on the properties of such worlds, then briefly consider other metaphysical options available for interpreting pure (...) wave mechanics. These reflections will serve to illustrate both the nature and the limits of naturalized metaphysics. (shrink)

This article concerns how rule-following behavior might evolve, how an old evolved rule might come to be appropriated to a new context, and how simple concepts might coevolve with rule-following behavior. In particular, we consider how the transitive inferential rule-following behavior exhibited by pinyon and scrub jays might evolve in the context of a variety of the Skyrms-Lewis signaling game, then how such a rule might come to be appropriated to carry out inferences regarding stimuli different from those involved in (...) the original evolution of the rule, and how this appropriation involves a step toward the evolution of basic ordinal concepts. (shrink)

We consider how an epistemic network might self-assemble from the ritualization of the individual decisions of simple heterogeneous agents. In such evolved social networks, inquirers may be significantly more successful than they could be investigating nature on their own. The evolved network may also dramatically lower the epistemic risk faced by even the most talented inquirers. We consider networks that self-assemble in the context of both perfect and imperfect communication and compare the behaviour of inquirers in each. This provides a (...) step in bringing together two new and developing research programs, the theory of self-assembling games and the theory of network epistemology. (shrink)

This paper concerns two composite Lewis-Skyrms signaling games. Each consists in a base game that evolves a language descriptive of nature and a metagame that coevolves a language descriptive of the base game and its evolving language. The first composite game shows how a pragmatic notion of truth might coevolve with a simple descriptive language. The second shows how a pragmatic notion of probability might similarly coevolve. Each of these pragmatic notions is characterized by the particular game and role that (...) it comes to play in the game. (shrink)

A resolution of the quantum measurement problem would require one to explain how it is that we end up with determinate records at the end of our measurements. Metaphysical commitments typically do real work in such an explanation. Indeed, one should not be satisfied with one's metaphysical commitments unless one can provide some account of determinate measurement records. I will explain some of the problems in getting determinate records in relativistic quantum field theory and pay particular attention to the relationship (...) between the measurement problem and a generalized version of Malament's theorem. (shrink)

Insofar as empirical inquiry involves the coevolution of descriptive language and theoretical commitments, a satisfactory model of empirical knowledge should describe the coordinated evolution of both language and theory. But since we do not know what conceptual resources we might need to express our future theories or to provide our best future faithful descriptions of the world, we do not now know even what the space of future descriptive options might be. One strategy for addressing this shifting-resource problem is to (...) track the predictive and linguistic dispositions of inquirers rather than to track their theories and conceptual resources directly. Sender-predictor games, a variant of Skyrms–Lewis sender-receiver games, provide very simple models for the coordinated coevolution of predictive and linguistic dispositions. Such models explain how it is possible for predictive and descriptive dispositions of inquirers to coevolve, term-wise incommensurable, but nevertheless descriptively faithful languages, to sequentially evolve, and a sort of underdetermination to occur where inquirers might satisfy their descriptive and predictive aims by revising their linguistic dispositions, their theoretical dispositions, or both. Such models also provide an elementary characterization of what it might mean for descriptions of the world to be faithful and hence for empirical inquiry to be successful. In doing so they provide a relatively weak, but perfectly clear, endogenous account of epistemic norms. (shrink)

A review of The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse by Steven D Smith.

This paper is concerned with the possibility and nature of relativistic hidden-variable formulations of quantum mechanics. Both ad hoc teleological constructions of spacetime maps and frame-dependent constructions of spacetime maps are considered. While frame-dependent constructions are clearly preferable, they provide neither mechanical nor causal explanations for local quantum events. Rather, the hiddenvariable dynamics used in such constructions is just a rule that helps to characterize the set of all possible spacetime maps. But while having neither mechanical nor causal explanations of (...) the values of quantummechanical measurement records is a significant cost, it may simply prove too much to ask for such explanations in relativistic quantum mechanics. (shrink)