Syntactic complexity effects have been investigated extensively with respect to comprehension . According to one prominent class of accounts , certain structures cause comprehension difficulty due to their scarcity in the language. But why are some structures less frequent than others? In two elicited-production experiments we investigated syntactic complexity effects in relative clauses and wh-questions varying in whether or not they contained non-local dependencies. In both experiments, we found reliable durational differences between subject-extracted structures and object-extracted structures : Participants took (...) longer to begin and produce object-extractions. Furthermore, participants were more likely to be disfluent in the object-extracted constructions. These results suggest that there is a cost associated with planning and uttering the more syntactically complex, object-extracted structures, and that this cost manifests in the form of longer durations and disfluencies. Although the precise nature of this cost remains to be determined, these effects provide one plausible explanation for the relative rarity of object-extractions: They are more costly to produce. (shrink)

Delusions are a common symptom of schizophrenia and dementia. Though most English dictionaries define a delusion as a false opinion or belief, there is currently a lively debate about whether delusions are really beliefs and indeed, whether they are even irrational. The book is an interdisciplinary exploration of the nature of delusions. It brings together the psychological literature on the aetiology and the behavioural manifestations of delusions, and the philosophical literature on belief ascription and rationality. The thesis of the book (...) is that delusions are continuous with ordinary beliefs, a thesis that could have important theoretical and practical implications for psychiatric classification and the clinical treatment of subjects with delusions. By bringing together recent work in philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology and psychiatry, the book offers a comprehensive review of the philosophical issues raised by the psychology of normal and abnormal cognition, defends the doxastic conception of delusions, and develops a theory about the role of judgements of rationality and of attributions of self-knowledge in belief ascription. Presenting a highly original analysis of the debate on the nature of delusions, this book will interest philosophers of mind, epistemologists, philosophers of science, cognitive scientists, psychiatrists, and mental health professionals. (shrink)

It is one of the central aims of the philosophy of science to elucidate the meanings of scientific terms and also to think critically about their application. The focus of this essay is the scientific term predict and whether there is credible evidence that animal models, especially in toxicology and pathophysiology, can be used to predict human outcomes. Whether animals can be used to predict human response to drugs and other chemicals is apparently a contentious issue. However, when one empirically (...) analyzes animal models using scientific tools they fall far short of being able to predict human responses. This is not surprising considering what we have learned from fields such evolutionary and developmental biology, gene regulation and expression, epigenetics, complexity theory, and comparative genomics. (shrink)

A new theory of how the brain constructs emotions that could revolutionize psychology, health care, law enforcement, and our understanding of the human mind Emotions feel automatic, like uncontrollable reactions to things we think and experience. Scientists have long supported this assumption by claiming that emotions are hardwired in the body or the brain. Today, however, the science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the discovery of relativity in physics and natural selection in biology--and (...) this paradigm shift has far-reaching implications for us all. Leading the charge is psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, whose theory of emotion is driving a deeper understanding of the mind and brain, and shedding new light on what it means to be human. Her research overturns the widely held belief that emotions are housed in different parts of the brain and are universally expressed and recognized. Instead, she has shown that emotion is constructed in the moment, by core systems that interact across the whole brain, aided by a lifetime of learning. This new theory means that you play a much greater role in your emotional life than you ever thought. Its repercussions are already shaking the foundations not only of psychology but also of medicine, the legal system, child-rearing, meditation, and even airport security. Why do emotions feel automatic? Does rational thought really control emotion? How does emotion affect disease? How can you make your children more emotionally intelligent? How Emotions Are Made answers these questions and many more, revealing the latest research and intriguing practical applications of the new science of emotion, mind, and brain. (shrink)

Stanford Encyclopedia Entry on Delusions.

What is it to base a belief on reasons? Existing attempts to give an account of the basing relation encounter a dilemma: either one appeals to some kind of neutral process that does not adequately reflect the way basing is a content-sensitive first-personal activity, or one appeals to linking or bridge principles that over-intellectualize and threaten regress. We explain why this dilemma arises, and diagnose the commitments that are key obstacles to providing a satisfactory account. We explain why they should (...) be rejected anyway, and then offer a new, knowledge-first virtue epistemological theory of the basing relation that shows how we can substantially theorize about mental processes without these commitments. The resulting view plausibly captures the way in which basing is an inherently mental and content-sensitive process. (shrink)

Examines the place of rhetoric in John Locke's political and philosophical thought. Traces the close ties between rhetoric and experience as they form the basis for a theory and practice of judgment at the center of his work"--Provided by publisher.

The thesis of Weak Unrestricted Composition says that every pair of objects has a fusion. This thesis has been argued by Contessa and Smith to be compatible with the world being junky and hence to evade an argument against the necessity of Strong Unrestricted Composition proposed by Bohn. However, neither Weak Unrestricted Composition alone nor the different variants of it that have been proposed in the literature can provide us with a satisfying answer to the special composition question, or so (...) we will argue. We will then go on to explore an alternative family of purely mereological rules in the vicinity of Weak Unrestricted Composition, Cardinal Composition: A plurality of pairwise non-overlapping objects composes an object iff the objects in the plurality are of cardinality smaller than $$\kappa $$ κ. As we will show, all the instances for infinite $$\kappa $$ κ s determine fusion and are compatible with junk, and every instance for a $$\kappa > \aleph _0$$ κ > ℵ 0 is furthermore compatible with gunk and dense chains of parthood. (shrink)

In this review we consider the new science of Darwinian medicine. While it has often been said that evolutionary theory is the glue that holds the disparate branches of biological inquiry together and gives them direction and purpose, the links to biomedical inquiry have only recently been articulated in a coherent manner. Our aim in this review is to make clear first of all, how evolutionary theory is relevant to medicine; and secondly, how the biomedical sciences have enriched our understanding (...) of evolutionary processes. We will conclude our review with some observations of the philosophical significance of this interplay between evolutionary theory and the biomedical sciences. (shrink)

What about Confucian bioethics should compel our interest? Apart from the fact that Confucianism grounds the belief system of a great number of people, a Confucian bioethics poses a profound challe...

Andrew Shanks brings together a grand narrative of theology and continental philosophy to argue that the 'solidarity of the shaken' is the kingdom of God in secular dress. Using Jan Patocka's concept of the 'solidarity of the shaken', he explores mystical theology, gnosticism and ethical phenomenology through a set of key 19th- and 20th-century thinkers that exemplified the 'pathos of shakenness'.

This volume is designed to be an in-depth and nuanced philosophical treatment of the virtue of obedience in the context of the professional military and the broader civilian political community, including the general citizenry. The nature and components of obedience are critical factors leading to further discussions of the moral obligations related to obedience, as well as the related practical issues and implications. Pauline Shanks Kaurin seeks to address the following questions: What is obedience? Is it a virtue, and if (...) it is, why? What are the moral grounds of obedience? Why ought military members and citizens be obedient? Are there times that one ought not be obedient? Why? How should we think about obedience in contemporary political communities? (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory provides an overview of the analytical frameworks and theoretical concepts feminist theorists have developed to challenge established knowledge. Leading feminist theorists, from around the globe, provide in-depth explorations of a diverse array of subject areas, capturing a plurality of approaches. The Handbook raises new questions, brings new evidence, and poses significant challenges across the spectrum of academic disciplines, demonstrating the interdisciplinary nature of feminist theory.

Im Zeitalter des sogenannten »Anthropozäns« werden wir Zeugen einer ontologischen Verschiebung: Die modernen Grenzziehungen zwischen Kultur und Natur, Subjekt und Objekt sowie die Vorstellung einer Welt, die aus unabhängigen Entitäten besteht, werden in der aktuellen Umbruchskonfiguration weitreichend destabilisiert. So ist die »Krise« der Moderne auch als eine »Krise« des Seins zu lesen, die die Möglichkeit eines (Anders-)Werdens relationaler Welt/en eröffnen könnte. Aus einer medienphilosophischen Perspektive fragt Lisa Handel danach, wie dieses Aufsprengen der Seinsontologie von der Frage der Medialität her (...) zu denken und situieren ist. Ontomedialität ist »Kartenkunde und Reisebericht« einer Welt, in der Medialität und Ontologie je schon implodiert und ununterscheidbar geworden sind. (shrink)

Dr Jardine finds a unifying principle in Bacon's preoccupation with 'method', the evaluation and organisation of information as a procedure of investigation or ...

This paper argues that the diversity of conflicting comprehensive doctrines in liberal pluralist societies raises a problem of estrangement between citizens and the basic structure of society that Rawls' version of political liberalism does not successfully solve. 'Political estrangement' occurs when someone refuses to accept a political outcome that favors a comprehensive doctrine she rejects, based on what she imagines, correctly or incorrectly, to be true of her fellow citizens' comprehensive doctrines and their effect on political outcomes. Rawls argues that (...) the political conception of justice and the use of public reason ensure the incompatibility of our comprehensive doctrines will not undermine our willingness to to accept political decisions contrary to our own values. However, public reason does not guarantee this result. Imagination can allow us to see that the influence of some reasonable comprehensive doctrines can lead to oppressive political outcomes and public reason restricts us from addressing this fact. Yet, widening public reason to account for this problem is likely to increase the conditions that cause estrangement. The paper concludes that the political conception of justice and public reason may sometimes fail to adequately justify political outcomes in the sense Rawls hopes. (shrink)

Good epistemic practices are essential to the well-functioning of organizations. Epistemic practices are adopted norms, policies, procedures, and general methodologies that further our epistemic aims or realize our epistemic values. This chapter argues for the importance of organizational good epistemic practices through an analysis of the failures of risk management implicated in JPMorgan’s notorious ‘London Whale’ trading losses, which roiled the financial markets in 2012. A number of these failures of risk management exemplified ways in which we, as fallible reasoners, (...) may be prone to error individually and collectively. Good epistemic practices inter alia anticipate and endeavor to correct for erroneous patterns of reasoning. They help guard against future epistemic failings, and they support good reasoning within and on the part of organizations. In so doing, they constitute some of the key structural elements of organizational epistemic virtues. (shrink)

People are typically poor at telling apart truthful and deceptive statements. Based on the Unconscious Thought Theory, it has been suggested that poor lie detection arises from the intrinsic limitations of conscious thinking and can be improved by facilitating the contribution of unconscious thought. In support of this hypothesis, Reinhard, Greifeneder, and Scharmach (2013) observed improved lie detection among participants engaging in unconscious thought. The present study aimed to replicate this unconscious thought advantage using a similar experimental procedure but with (...) an important improvement in a key control condition. Specifically, participants judged the truthfulness of 8 video recordings in three thinking modes: immediately after watching them or after a period of unconscious or conscious deliberation. Results from two experiments (combined N = 226) failed to reveal a significant difference in lie detection accuracy between the thinking modes, even after efforts were made to facilitate the occurrence of an unconscious thought advantage in Experiment 2. The results imply that the unconscious thought advantage in deception detection is not a robust phenomenon. (shrink)

Environmentalism has relentlessly warned about the dire consequences of abusing and exploiting the planet's natural resources, imagining future wastelands of ecological depletion and social chaos. But it has also generated rich new ideas about how humans might live better with nature. Green Utopias explores these ideas of environmental hope in the post-war period, from the environmental crisis to the end of nature. Using a broad definition of Utopia as it exists in Western policy, theory and literature, Lisa Garforth explains (...) how its developing entanglement with popular culture and mainstream politics has shaped successive green future visions and initiatives. In the face of apocalyptic, despairing or indifferent responses to contemporary ecological dilemmas, utopias and the utopian method seem more necessary than ever. This distinctive reading of green political thought and culture will appeal across the social sciences and humanities to all interested in why green utopias continue to matter in the cultivation of ecological values and the emergence of new forms of human and non-human well-being. (shrink)

In philosophy, psychiatry, and cognitive science, definitions of clinical delusions are not based on the mechanisms responsible for the formation of delusions, since there is no consensus yet on what causes delusions. Some of the defining features of delusions are epistemic and focus on whether delusions are true, justified, or rational, as in the definition of delusions as fixed beliefs that are badly supported by evidence. Other defining features of delusions are psychological and focus on whether delusions are harmful, as (...) in the definition of delusions as beliefs that disrupt good functioning. Even if the epistemic features go some way towards capturing what otherwise different instances of clinical delusions have in common, they do not succeed in distinguishing delusions as a clinical phenomenon from everyday irrational beliefs. Focusing on the psychological features is a more promising way to mark the difference between clinical and non-clinical irrational beliefs, but there is wide variability in the extent to which delusions are psychologically harmful, and some everyday irrational beliefs can affect functioning in similarly negative ways. In this chapter we consider three types of belief that share similar epistemic features and exhibit variation with respect to how psychologically harmful they are: (1) delusions of thought insertion, (2) alien abduction beliefs, and (3) self-enhancing beliefs. In the light of the similarities and differences among these cases, we highlight the difficulty in providing an answer to what makes an irrational belief delusional. (shrink)

ABSTRACTHilary Putnam provides an anti-skeptical argument motivated by semantic externalism. He argues that our best theorizing about what it takes to experience, think, and so on, entails that the world is much as we take it to be. This fact eliminates the possibility of radical skeptical scenarios, where from our perspective everything seems as it does in the actual case, but we are widely and systematically mistaken. I think that this approach is generally correct, and that it is the most (...) promising strategy for undermining radical skepticism. There are, however, well-discussed difficulties with Putnam's way of pursuing this strategy. I argue that in order to avoid these objections we will have to be more radical externalists than Putnam proposed; in particular, we will have to beperspectival externalists. According to perspectival externalism, a subject's reliable relations to her environment play a crucial role in determining not only the contents of her mental events, but also what it is like for her to grasp those contents. While semantic externalism is widely accepted in epistemology, perspectival externalism is not. I argue that perspectival externalism is independently more plausible than mere semantic externalism, and that such an account can enable us to better pursue Putnam's anti-skeptical strategy. (shrink)

Film Ethics considers a range of films and texts of film criticism alongside disparate philosophical discourses of ethics by Levinas, Derrida, Foucault, ...

This chapter provides an introduction to the emerging field of the philosophy of money and finance. The field addresses philosophical issues about the nature of money and the normative foundations of financial systems. Although philosophical theorizing about money and finance dates back to Antiquity, the topic has only recently emerged as a central research focus. The chapter also introduces the present anthology and locates its parts and chapters in the broader field. More specifically, the anthology is divided into four main (...) parts: Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, and Political Philosophy. Each part contains four chapters on different but interrelated topics, which are all introduced here. (shrink)

Das Bose ist die zentrale Herausforderung fur das Denken der Freiheit. Die vorliegende Studie rekonstruiert historisch versiert den Problemzusammenhang von Freiheit und Notwendigkeit im Deutschen Idealismus und prazisiert den systematischen Losungsansatz Schellings um das Jahr 1809. Diese Neuinterpretation der Freiheitsschrift berucksichtigt auch die theologischen Fragen und die im Hintergrund wirksame Tradition des (Neu-)Platonismus.

Much insect sounding is beyond the limits of typical human hearing ability. This sonic separation is exacerbated by a socialized narrative of fear and avoidance of insects in many western societies. With the use of audio technologies to expand our senses, we can embrace opportunities to get to know sensory and communicative insect sound-worlds beyond our own. Ecological sound art – sound art that has an environmentalist intent – is a tangible and accessible means of listening to these sounds. In (...) the series Built Hidden Soundscapes, the primary author (Schonberg) composes imagined soundscapes existing solely of sounds that are beyond the limits of typical human hearing ability. In this article we introduce two compositions in this series, Reserva Florestal Adolpho Ducke and Pipeline Road. These compositions offer a temporary expansion of our aural senses that can increase listeners’ awareness of cryptic insect existences/ecologies. We suggest that this listening practice might prompt future auralization (sounding or hearing in the mind) of insect sound for the listener. (shrink)

Der Band untersucht rhetorische Strategien der emotionalen Kommunikation in Partnerwerbungsgesprächen. Ausgehend von der Annahme, dass eine bewusste Steuerung emotionaler Gesprächsprozesse durch einen strategischen Kommunikator die Erreichung des angestrebten Ziels wahrscheinlicher macht, geht er der Frage nach, welche Möglichkeiten sich in solchen Gesprächen bieten, mit Hilfe sprachlich-textlicher Mittel emotional zu überzeugen. Dabei konzentriert er sich - in Abgrenzung zu Studien emotionaler Körpersprache - ganz auf die verbale Seite der Kommunikation. Als Datenbasis dienen die Transkripte eines Korpus aus Face-to-Face-Gesprächen. Basierend auf einem (...) methodisch innovativen Ansatz zur Untersuchung des Verhältnisses von Sprache und Emotion, liefert der Band zahlreiche neue Erkenntnisse für die Rhetorik-, Emotions- und Gesprächsforschung. Dr. Lisa Becker promovierte im Fach Allgemeine Rhetorik an der Universität Tübingen. (shrink)

Drawing on her 35-year plus experience in the classroom, Lisa Lee has transformed her extensive and authentic teaching experience into a contagious passion and energy with a specialization in Gifted and Talented programs and a focus on the students who don't always fit in a box. The Heart of Teaching is a book about her experience as a teacher, and the students she both taught and learned from, and the lessons she garnered as someone who always taught from the (...) heart. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss how the space of the classroom is a contested object that is constituted by historical, cultural, political, social, psychological, and discursive practices (Lefebvre in The production of space, Blackwell, Oxford, UK, 1991). I then employ Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of “assemblage” to characterize the ways in which educational spaces cohere “content and affect” quoted in Puar (Terrorist assemblages: Homonationalism in queer times, Duke University Press, Durham, 2007, 193) into discursive figures of the heteronormative and racialized (...) national “family.” Finally, I argue that in order to advance contemporary theorizing on safe space we might consider shifting the metaphor of the classroom (and/or schooling) as a situation of home (in loco parentis) to that of a metaphor of camp. As a discursive practice, “camp” is like “home” in that it has multiple associations of past histories. However, the advantage of the metaphor of classroom as camp allows for a more capacious range of past histories of association, from recreation to temporary inhabitation to forced relocation, thus foregrounding the innate political implications of theorizing space. Moreover, the metaphor of camp implies transience (whether real or imaginary) while keeping in mind the partial and situated nature of particular places and spaces. Foregrounding the transient component/feature of safe space allows us to make visible and explore the possibilities and limitations of conceptualizing relations of power as circuitous, contested and performative through competing claims to particular places as objects of safety. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the work of W. E. B. Du Bois to expose the disastrous effects of white supremacy in the U.S. and the world. While his early works suggest that white supremacy might be rehabilitated by the careful presentation of contrary evidence, in later works he catalogs the primary features of whiteness, including an infantile comportment, a pathological attachment to innocence, and an epistemic incapacity to absorb evidence of its own error. To capture the scope of the (...) delusion of whiteness on Du Bois’s account, I suggest the term “irrevocable license.” The remainder of the paper uses Du Bois’s account to examine the case of a “Karen”—a white woman who obliviously and inappropriately interferes with the lawful actions of a family of color—and further considers police violence against people of color as an outgrowth of white irrevocable license. (shrink)

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Digital technology has transformed the way that we visualise the natural world, the art we create and the stories we tell about our environments. Exploring contemporary digital art and literature through an ecocritical lens, Digital Vision and the Ecological Aesthetic (1968-2018) demonstrates the many ways in which critical ideas of the sublime, the pastoral and the picturesque have been renewed and shaped in (...) digital media, from electronic literature to music and the visual arts. The book goes on to explore the ecological implications of these new forms of cultural representation in the digital age and in so doing makes a profound contribution to our understanding of digital art practice in the 21st century. (shrink)

This book presents the relation between the subject and the other in the work of Jacques Derrida as one of 'surviving translating'. It demonstrates the key role of translation in thinking difference rather than identity, beginning with the work of Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas. It describes how translation, and its ethical demands, acts as a leitmotif throughout Derrida's writing; from his early work on Edmund Husserl to his last texts on politics and hospitality. While for both Heidegger and Levinas (...) translation is always possible, Derrida's account is marked by the challenge of impossibility. Expanding translation beyond a merely linguistic operation, Foran explores Derrida's accounts of mourning, death and 'survival' to offer a new perspective on the ethics of subjectivity"--Back cover. (shrink)

I argue against traditional virtue epistemology on which knowledge is a success due to a competence to believe truly, by revealing an in-principle problem with the traditional virtue epistemologist’s explanation of Gettier cases. The argument eliminates one of the last plausible explanation of Gettier cases, and so of knowledge, in terms of non-factive mental states and non-mental conditions. I then I develop and defend a different kind of virtue epistemology, on which knowledge is an exercise of a competence to know. (...) I show how the account, while circular, is not viciously so. It explains both how knowledge is a mental state, as well as the relationship between knowledge and justification, including justified false beliefs and Gettier cases. Moreover, although direct virtue epistemology is compatible with many views on the nature of belief, it can explain how knowledge might be metaphysically more fundamental than belief as well. (shrink)