The study tests the hypothesis that conditional probability judgments can be influenced by causal links between the target event and the evidence even when the statistical relations among variables are held constant. Three experiments varied the causal structure relating three variables and found that (a) the target event was perceived as more probable when it was linked to evidence by a causal chain than when both variables shared a common cause; (b) predictive chains in which evidence is a cause of (...) the hypothesis gave rise to higher judgments than diagnostic chains in which evidence is an effect of the hypothesis; and (c) direct chains gave rise to higher judgments than indirect chains. A Bayesian learning model was applied to our data but failed to explain them. An explanation-based hypothesis stating that statistical information will affect judgments only to the extent that it changes beliefs about causal structure is consistent with the results. (shrink)

We invoke the ideal of tolerance in response to conflict, but what does it mean to answer conflict with a call for tolerance? Is tolerance a way of resolving conflicts or a means of sustaining them? Does it transform conflicts into productive tensions, or does it perpetuate underlying power relations? To what extent does tolerance hide its involvement with power and act as a form of depoliticization? Wendy Brown and Rainer Forst debate the uses and misuses of tolerance, an exchange (...) that highlights the fundamental differences in their critical practice despite a number of political similarities. Both scholars address the normative premises, limits, and political implications of various conceptions of tolerance. Brown offers a genealogical critique of contemporary discourses on tolerance in Western liberal societies, focusing on their inherent ties to colonialism and imperialism, and Forst reconstructs an intellectual history of tolerance that attempts to redeem its political virtue in democratic societies. Brown and Forst work from different perspectives and traditions, yet they each remain wary of the subjection and abnegation embodied in toleration discourses, among other issues. The result is a dialogue rich in critical and conceptual reflections on power, justice, discourse, rationality, and identity. (shrink)

Human mental workload is arguably the most invoked multidimensional construct in Human Factors and Ergonomics, getting momentum also in Neuroscience and Neuroergonomics. Uncertainties exist in its characterization, motivating the design and development of computational models, thus recently and actively receiving support from the discipline of Computer Science. However, its role in human performance prediction is assured. This work is aimed at providing a synthesis of the current state of the art in human mental workload assessment through considerations, definitions, measurement techniques (...) as well as applications, Findings suggest that, despite an increasing number of associated research works, a single, reliable and generally applicable framework for mental workload research does not yet appear fully established. One reason for this gap is the existence of a wide swath of operational definitions, built upon different theoretical assumptions which are rarely examined collectively. A second reason is that the three main classes of measures, which are self-report, task performance, and physiological indices, have been used in isolation or in pairs, but more rarely in conjunction all together. Multiple definitions complement each another and we propose a novel inclusive definition of mental workload to support the next generation of empirical-based research. Similarly, by comprehensively employing physiological, task-performance, and self-report measures, more robust assessments of mental workload can be achieved. (shrink)

We invoke the ideal of tolerance in response to conflict, but what does it mean to answer conflict with a call for tolerance? Is tolerance a way of resolving conflicts or a means of sustaining them? Does it transform conflicts into productive tensions, or does it perpetuate underlying power relations? To what extent does tolerance hide its involvement with power and act as a form of depoliticization? Wendy Brown and Rainer Forst debate the uses and misuses of tolerance, an exchange (...) that highlights the fundamental differences in their critical practice despite a number of political similarities. Both scholars address the normative premises, limits, and political implications of various conceptions of tolerance. Brown offers a genealogical critique of contemporary discourses on tolerance in Western liberal societies, focusing on their inherent ties to colonialism and imperialism, and Forst reconstructs an intellectual history of tolerance that attempts to redeem its political virtue in democratic societies. Brown and Forst work from different perspectives and traditions, yet they each remain wary of the subjection and abnegation embodied in toleration discourses, among other issues. The result is a dialogue rich in critical and conceptual reflections on power, justice, discourse, rationality, and identity. (shrink)

War and Border Crossings brings together renowned scholars to address some of the most pressing problems in public policy, international affairs, and the intercultural issues of our day. Contributors from widely varying disciplines discuss cross-cultural ethical issues and international topics ranging from American international policy and the invasion and occupation of Iraq to domestic topics such as immigration, the war on drugs, cross-cultural bioethics and ethical issues involving American Indian tribes. The culture clashes discussed in these essays raise serious questions (...) about what principles ought to inform the negotiating of conflicts in order to achieve, or at least approach, outcomes that are fundamentally just, fair, responsible, and ethical. (shrink)

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

Regular musical activity as a complex multimodal lifestyle activity is proposed to be protective against age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease. This cross-sectional study investigated the association and interplay between musical instrument playing during life, multi-domain cognitive abilities and brain morphology in older adults from the DZNE-Longitudinal Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Study study. Participants reporting having played a musical instrument across three life periods were compared to controls without a history of musical instrument playing, well-matched for reserve proxies of education, (...) intelligence, socioeconomic status and physical activity. Participants with musical activity outperformed controls in global cognition, working memory, executive functions, language, and visuospatial abilities, with no effects seen for learning and memory. The musically active group had greater gray matter volume in the somatosensory area, but did not differ from controls in higher-order frontal, temporal, or hippocampal volumes. However, the association between gray matter volume in distributed frontal-to-temporal regions and cognitive abilities was enhanced in participants with musical activity compared to controls. We show that playing a musical instrument during life relates to better late-life cognitive abilities and greater brain capacities in OA. Musical activity may serve as a multimodal enrichment strategy that could help preserve cognitive and brain health in late life. Longitudinal and interventional studies are needed to support this notion. (shrink)

La plupart des études récentes sur le Lysis de Platon considèrent ce dialogue comme un échec philosophique. Si quelques parties du Lysis ont retenu l’at­tention des commentateurs, il en est peu qui ont essayé, dans leur analyse, de défendre l’idée que ce court texte offre un contenu philosophique construit et cohérent. Terry Penner et Christopher Rowe (P&R) relèvent ce défi dans leur commentaire philosophique de ce dialogue en affirmant qu’une analyse systéma­tique du Lysis est insuffisante e...

Do trees of life have roots? What do these roots look like? In this contribution, I argue that research on the origins of life might offer glimpses on the topology of these very roots. More specifically, I argue (1) that the roots of the tree of life go well below the level of the commonly mentioned ‘ancestral organisms’ down into the level of much simpler, minimally living entities that might be referred to as ‘protoliving systems’, and (2) that further below, (...) a system of roots gradually dissolves into non-living matter along several functional dimensions. In between non-living and living matter, one finds physico-chemical systems that I propose to characterize by a ‘lifeness signature’. In turn, this ‘lifeness signature’ might also account for a diverse range of biochemical entities that are found to be ‘less-than-living’ yet ‘more-than-non-living’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:TragedyA Lesson in SurvivalChristopher Perricone (bio)Tragedy and Its Historical Context"Tragedy" in the strict sense of the word refers to an ancient Greek literary genre, a form of drama for the most part performed publicly in the theater. As is well known, the word "tragedy" literally means "goat song." The belief among scholars is that early singers of tragedy wore goatskin costumes in imitation of satyrs. Also, as is well (...) known, Aristotle defines "tragedy" in the strict sense of the word as "the imitation of an action that is serious and also having magnitude, complete in itself; in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of the work; in a dramatic, not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions."1 Of course, when one thinks of tragedy in the strict sense the names that come to mind are Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. It is arguable that these men not only set the stage for and developed the idea of tragedy in the strict sense, but they also laid the foundations of tragedy for centuries to come.After the Greeks, not surprisingly, tragedy evolves. The strict sense of the term as a point of reference, origin, or nucleus, remains—that is, after the Greeks, tragedy still retains that sense of "an imitation of an action that is serious." However, when one considers what later goes by the name of tragedy, one is hard-pressed, without resorting to Procrustean measures, to fit with any precision those later works of tragedy into the original Greek mold. After the Greeks, Seneca composes tragedies, as do Marlowe, Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, Goethe, Schiller, Ibsen, Chekov, Lorca, Anouilh, Miller, et al. Even the sense of "serious" is not exactly the same: is the seriousness of Hedda Gabler's or Willie Loman's fate at all comparable to the fates of [End Page 70] Medea or Oedipus? The former cases surely seem serious in some domestic sense, whereas the latter clearly are intended to imply seriousness on a much grander and perhaps cosmic scale.The reason I mention all this is that "tragedy," both in what I call the strict and nuclear ancient Greek sense of the term (which does not imply that tragedy is clearly and distinctly defined, even in ancient Greece) and in the looser, derived sense of the word, has a long and compelling history. Tragedy is a form of drama to which we continually return. It is a genre that seems intrinsic not only to our very idea of theater but also to the very nature of art itself. Although one may debate the plausibility of writing tragedies in a disillusioned and nonheroic age, nevertheless one can hardly imagine the theater existing without tragedy. One way or another, it seems tragedies, whether in the strict or loose sense, will always be performed, and not merely out of nostalgia. Indeed, given the compelling nature of tragedy, it seems no accident that among the giants of literature, the tragedians are significantly represented. The compelling nature of tragedy is nicely expressed by the literary critic F. L. Lucas, and his statements should be considered a complement to Aristotle:Tragedy, then, is a representation of human unhappiness, which pleases us notwithstanding, by the truth with which it is seen and the fineness with which it is communicated—"l'amertume poignante et fortifiante de tout ce qui est vrai." ["The invigorating and poignant bitterness of whatever is true"; my translation.] The world of everyday seems often a purposeless chaos, a mangy tiger without even the fearful symmetry of Blake's vision; but the world of tragedy we can face, for we feel mind behind it and the symmetry is there. Tragedy, in fine, is man's answer to this universe that crushes him so pitilessly. Destiny scowls upon him; his answer is to sit down and paint her where she stands.2It is not only true that tragedy as practice and performance has a long and rich history; the study of tragedy has an equally long and rich history. The idea of tragedy has attracted, tantalized, frustrated, and exercised... (shrink)

What is the place and value of reflection in people’s lives? The answer requires a careful discussion about the relationship between our epistemic performances, our intellectual capabilities and competencies, our affective relationships with the environment, our actions and our interpersonal interactions. It is a fact that for us to navigate and interact with the world and with our society, we sometimes think about our reasons, we give reasons, we change our minds, and even think about our habits and character traits (...) in order to make them virtuous. And it seems that at least most of the times, it is by reflection that we do it. -/- This book brings together the following chapters: “Animal Versus Reflective Orders of Epistemic Competence” by Ernest Sosa; “The Status of Reflection in Virtue Epistemology” by Christopher Kelp; “The Social Value of Reflection” by John Greco; “Disagreement, Intellectual Humility, and Reflection” by Duncan Pritchard; “Philosophical Reflection and Rashness” by Plinio J. Smith; “Between Feeling and Symbolization: Philosophical Paths to Thinking about Oneself” by Robert E. Innis; “Mirrors and Reflexive processes” by Raffaele De Luca Picione; “Bodily origin of self-reflection and its socially extended aspects” by Shogo Tanaka; and “Psychological reflection, thought and imagination as epistemic skills” by Miika Vähämaa. (shrink)