This paper presents the results of an experiment designed to test for nationality bias among members of the Brazilian philosophical community. Faculty members and postgraduate students from philosophy departments at seven Brazilian universities evaluated texts attributed to authors of European and Latin American nationalities. Results showed a clear preference for French nationality over Brazilian. They were inconclusive, however, when contrasting other Latin American nationalities with European nationalities, which likely relates to the academic background of the participants. These overall results support (...) the claim that Brazilian academic philosophers are highly critical of Brazilians who produce theories of their own. The paper calls on philosophers to carefully consider the ways in which Eurocentrism impacts their very ability to reason. (shrink)

A new formulation of the Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA) for the existence of God is offered, which avoids a number of commonly raised objections. I argue that we can and should focus on the fundamental constants and initial conditions of the universe, and show how physics itself provides the probabilities that are needed by the argument. I explain how this formulation avoids a number of common objections, specifically the possibility of deeper physical laws, the multiverse, normalisability, whether God would fine-tune at (...) all, whether the universe is too fine-tuned, and whether the likelihood of God creating a life-permitting universe is inscrutable. (shrink)

Fine-tuning in physics and cosmology is often used as evidence that a theory is incomplete. For example, the parameters of the standard model of particle physics are “unnaturally” small, which has driven much of the search for physics beyond the standard model. Of particular interest is the fine-tuning of the universe for life, which suggests that our universe’s ability to create physical life forms is improbable and in need of explanation, perhaps by a multiverse. This claim has been challenged on (...) the grounds that the relevant probability measure cannot be justified because it cannot be normalized, and so small probabilities cannot be inferred. We show how fine-tuning can be formulated within the context of Bayesian theory testing in the physical sciences. The normalizability problem is seen to be a general problem for testing any theory with free parameters, and not a unique problem for fine-tuning. Physical theories in fact avoid such problems in one of two ways. Dimensional parameters are bounded by the Planck scale, avoiding troublesome infinities, and we are not compelled to assume that dimensionless parameters are distributed uniformly, which avoids non-normalizability. (shrink)

This volume explores the theoretical frameworks, methodology and field practice suited to late antique archaeology.

State governments provide preprinted advance directive forms to the general public. However, many adults in the United States (US) lack the skills necessary to read and comprehend health care-related materials. In this study, we sought to determine the readability of state government-sponsored advance directive forms.

Exceptionally preserved fossils are the product of complex interplays of biological and geological processes including burial, autolysis and microbial decay, authigenic mineralization, diagenesis, metamorphism, and finally weathering and exhumation. Determining which tissues are preserved and how biases affect their preservation pathways is important for interpreting fossils in phylogenetic, ecological, and evolutionary frameworks. Although laboratory decay experiments reveal important aspects of fossilization, applying the results directly to the interpretation of exceptionally preserved fossils may overlook the impact of other key processes that (...) remove or preserve morphological information. Investigations of fossils preserving non-biomineralized tissues suggest that certain structures that are decay resistant are rarely preserved, and decay-prone structures can fossilize, albeit rarely. As we review here, decay resistance is an imperfect indicator of fossilization potential, and a suite of biological and geological processes account for the features preserved in exceptional fossils. Organisms decayed experimentally in seawater have been used as direct analogs for soft-bodied fossil taxa, with fossils representing a snapshot of a particular stage of decay. We argue that numerous geological and biological processes account for fossilization and that all of these should be considered when reconstructing extinct organisms. (shrink)

As militarization of bodies politic continues apace the world over, as military organizations again reveal themselves as primary political, economic and cultural forces in many societies, we argue that the emergent and potentially dominant form of political economic organization is a species of neo-feudal corporatism. Drawing upon Bourdieu, we theorize bodies politic as living habitus. Bodies politic are prepared for war and peace through new mediations, powerful means of public pedagogy. The process of militarization requires the generation of new, antagonistic (...) evaluations of other bodies politic. Such evaluations are inculcated via these mediations, the movement of meanings across time and space, between formerly disparate histories, places, and cultures. New mediations touch new and different aspects of the body politic: its eyes, its ears, its organs, but they are consistently targeted at the formation of dispositions, the prime movers of action. (shrink)

Letters commenting on Hardwig, J "Is There a Duty to Die?" with a reply to those letters by the author.

Philosophical exploration of individualism and externalism in the cognitive sciences most recently has been focused on general evaluations of these two views (Adams & Aizawa 2008, Rupert 2008, Wilson 2004, Clark 2008). Here we return to broaden an earlier phase of the debate between individualists and externalists about cognition, one that considered in detail particular theories, such as those in developmental psychology (Patterson 1991) and the computational theory of vision (Burge 1986, Segal 1989). Music cognition is an area in the (...) cognitive sciences that has received little attention from philosophers, though it has relatively recently been thrown into the externalist spotlight (Cochrane 2008, Kruger 2014, Kersten forthcoming). Given that individualism can be thought of as a kind of paradigm for research on cognition, we provide a brief overview of the field of music cognition and individualistic tendencies within the field (sections 2 and 3) before turning to consider externalist alternatives to individualistic paradigms (section 4-5) and then arguing for a qualified form of externalism about music cognition (section 6). (shrink)

This chapter takes the form of a discussion between the editors of this volume and Steven Lukes, one the most eminent critics of methodological individualism. The focus is on Lukes’ interpretation of methodological individualism in terms of linguistic exclusivism (i.e., naive reductionism), the multiple-realization problem, Boudon’s and Elster’s micro-foundationalist approach, ontological individualism, and the rationality of human action.

Though we see the potential for benefits from the development of process-oriented approaches, we argue that it falls prey to many of the same critiques raised about the existing construct level of analysis. The construct-level approach will likely dominate motivation research until we develop computational models that are not only accurate, but also broadly usable.

Your Deepest Ground invites readers to take a deep dive into their personal, archetypal, and universal ground, and to see through the false ground of their early conditioning and limited identity. Using authentic anecdotes and conversations drawn from his teaching, and accompanied by refined sensing and inquiry practices, Prendergast guides the reader in a unique groundbreaking and ground-opening exploration.

A Career of Japan is the first study of one of the major photographers and personalities of nineteenth-century Japan. Baron Raimund von Stillfried was the most important foreign-born photographer of the Meiji era and one of the first globally active photographers of his generation. Based on extensive new primary sources and unpublished documents from archives around the world, this book examines von Stillfried's significance as a cultural mediator between Japan and Central Europe.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Playing Attention":Contemporary Aesthetics and Performing Arts Audience EducationMonica Prendergast (bio)IntroductionThe spectator is an essential element of the kind of play we call aesthetic.1We all watch television. We all go to the movies. Some of us also attend live performances such as plays, concerts, operas, dance recitals, poetry or prose readings, and so on. What are the differences to be found among these experiences? The audience experience of television (...) or film is a shared one, although a more fragmented sharing in the case of television, as it is with live arts events. We are aware that we are not alone in viewing a show, that it is a collective event. But we also realize that our presence does not really matter (aside from boosting ratings or adding to box office profits) and that the performance will continue with or without us. We may exit or enter the room or auditorium at will and never offend the actors, because their presence is "mediatized" and we are not sharing the same time or space with them.2 Attending a live performance is otherwise; our presence is a key element of the event and definitely can and does make a significant difference both for ourselves and for the performers. Although the size and qualities of the event and audience may alter this assertion — a huge stadium rock concert is arguably a more mediatized live performance than a small folk club date — it still holds true that presence is one of the most important qualities of audience in live performance.If we can accept that audience presence is central to performance, then it follows that aesthetic education in the performing arts needs to pay some attention to this phenomenon. In a First World culture that is currently over-saturated with mediatized performance, the future health and vitality of live performance is endangered if educators neglect to address the challenges and processes involved in being an audience for the performing arts in arts education curricula. This essay explores how aesthetic/arts education may [End Page 36] assist young people to grow in awareness and understanding of the essential role that is played by audience in attending performance. In examining the work of four contemporary aesthetic philosophers — Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul Ricoeur, Paul Thom, and James O. Young — I focus on the areas of spectatorship, attention, interpretation, and evaluation/criticism as important qualities of audience-in-performance. I will then offer a possible curriculum framework for audience education in the performing arts that is performative in form and nature; that is, creative, experiential, emergent, and open question-driven.Both classical and contemporary aesthetic philosophy tends to ignore the performing arts in general and audience-in-performance in particular.3 Plato derides performance as anti-reason and Aristotle salvages it by focusing on the audience's experience of catharsis in tragedy, but this fascinating debate gets lost over time as philosophers get caught up in questions around the definition and nature of art. Examinations of audience in aesthetics tend to assume an audience engaged in the more reflective, contemplative, and individual activity of viewing a work of visual art, reading a poem, or appreciating beauty in general. Discussions of performing arts deal with the text of a play or the score of a musical piece as the primary aesthetic object, with performances of these texts or scores considered somehow secondary, less-definable therefore less worthy of serious philosophic consideration.4 Although a number of aesthetic philosophers have taken up performance and audience issues in more recent years, especially regarding issues around "authentic" performance of music on original instruments, the experience of audience-in-performance remains understudied.5 Others, such as Nick Zangwill, try to negate the audience altogether as being a relatively insignificant part of an aesthetic event and argue that the central focus of aesthetics should be on the artist and the creation of artworks.6Fortunately, there have been a few voices in the field that do attend more closely to performing arts in general and audience in particular, or whose work can be effectively applied to this distinct type of aesthetic event. In the next section I will describe... (shrink)

How is modern psychotherapy impacted when it is approached from the presence and understanding of the unconditioned mind? What happens when therapists are able to function as a sacred mirror for their clients' essential nature, reflecting back not only the contents of awarenessùthoughts, feelings and sensationsùbut awareness itself? Informed by their direct experience as well as by nondual teachings from both eastern and western wisdom traditions, the authors take a fresh look at what psychotherapy can be. These seminal essays will (...) challenge and inspire readers to approach psychotherapy in a new wayùas a potential portal for experiencing their deepest nature as free and joyful beings.Seasoned clinicians, Dan Berkow, Stephan Bodian, Dorothy Hunt, Sheila Krystal, Lynn Marie Lumiere, Richard Miller, John Prendergast, John Welwood, Jennifer Welwood and Bryan Wittine, and innovative western spiritual teachers, Adyashanti and Peter Fenner, explore critical issues at the interface of psychology and spirituality from a nondual perspective. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Breathing:Proustian Therapy1Christopher Prendergast (bio)I begin with a question I would never have imagined myself asking. Is Proust good for you? Might there even be, albeit in carefully controlled doses, a place for him in modern 'health care'? He certainly belongs in the select, if occasionally scary, company of writers whose name, or that of one of their fictional characters, has lent itself to the designation of a psycho-physical (...) condition often with medical characteristics. A short list includes: Stendhal ('Stendhal syndrome,' the condition of obsessional attachment to works of art); Musset (the 'Musset Sign,' manifested as an uncontrollable tremor of the head); Gogol's Plyushkin in Dead Souls ('compulsive hoarding syndrome'); Dickens's Miss Havisham in Great Expectations ('senile squalor syndrome'); Wilde's Lady Windermere ('Lady Windermere syndrome,' associated with pulmonary illness and breathing difficulties).There is no evidence that Proust was directly acquainted with Wilde's play, but there can be little doubt that what came to be called 'Lady Windermere Syndrome' would have spoken to him loud and clear. In an early story called L'Indifférent, Proust penned an encomium to the air we breathe: "A child who from birth has always breathed without paying any attention has no idea how much the air, which swells so sweetly his chest that he doesn't even notice it, is essential to life." A memory of this is doubtless somewhere in the background of the passing mention in Le Côté de Guermantes of "the alpine resort" that teaches him "that the act of breathing, to which we habitually pay no attention, can be a constant source of pleasure." It was almost certainly also in Proust's thoughts when, in the final volume, he penned the famous definition of Paradise Lost as the place and time of "an air we have breathed before, this purer air which the poets have tried in vain to make reign in paradise and which could not provide this profound feeling of renewal if it has not already been breathed, for the only true paradise is a paradise that we have lost."But the early story, like the novel itself, is also haunted by a subtext in which what is precious to life can also be the enemy of life, as, in an access of fever and sudden convulsion, the child feels himself to be suffocating. The story clearly has its origins in Proust's own life, the moment of his first asthma attack as a young boy on a family outing to the Bois de Boulogne. It struck out of the blue with a frightening intensity, and was to pursue [End Page 49] him throughout his life like a fury, proliferating further symptoms such as emphysema and cardiac seizures. As late as 1919, he writes in a letter of an attack that leaves him "gasping like someone half-drowned who is pulled out of water." And it was there again at the moment of Proust's exit from the world, carried off by a bout of pneumonia exacerbated by a pulmonary abscess.There were treatments and consultations galore, the former on a spectrum from inhalations to cauterizing of the nasal tubes, and the latter including a meeting with his father's colleague, Dr. Buissand, who inclined to the view– and increasingly fashionable in medical circles–that the prime cause was neurasthenic. Proust himself hesitated: in a letter he described it as "a bodily illness," but in the Recherche, "asthma crises" are linked to a "mystery" of the "unconscious" and strike out of the blue. The 'mystery' is often, and plausibly, associated with fear of separation from the protective mother. This will be one of the major themes of the novel, and the source of the "sobs that never cease" of which the narrator speaks in the opening volume. But whether physical or psychosomatic, a guaranteed trigger was proximity to tree blossoms (apple especially virulent) and certain flowers–that is, the very things that, for Proust, often something approaching quasi-sacred status, thus illustrating the law that it is what you most love that can kill you.In the novel, however, much of this is distilled into comedy, all terrifying... (shrink)

Folie à deux is the transference of delusional ideas from one 'primary' individual to one or more 'secondary' individuals (Lasègue & Falret, 1877). However, it is difficult to investigate experimentally because often only one patient is identified as delusional. We investigated whether hypnosis could model the experiences of the secondary in this delusion. Our primary was a confederate, who displayed two delusional beliefs and attempted to transmit them to hypnotised subjects. We manipulated the status of the confederate so that they (...) were portrayed as either "credible" or merely "interesting". Many high hypnotisable individuals adopted the confederate's beliefs and confabulated evidence in support of them. Also, subjects who interacted with a credible confederate extended their delusions beyond those displayed by the confederate. We discuss the strengths and limitations of this approach and suggest ways to improve the validity of this model. (shrink)

This paper considers the sorts of evaluations that underlie the emotion of embarrassment, by questioning what unifies the various kinds of situations in which this emotion typically arises. It examines the difference between embarrassment and shame, and then addresses problems with the accounts of embarrassment proposed by previous authors, in particular Solomon, Taylor and Goffman. It proposes a new model, on which the emotion involves viewing an interpersonal situation, in which you are involved, as containing an exposure to which you (...) are averse. This may either be your own exposure to others, or others' exposure to yourself. The emotion thus reflects the value we attach to placing limits on the sorts of interactions and contact we have with other people. (shrink)

This article gives a critique of the notion of tolerance and the promotion of tolerance in education as a means of fostering respect for the ‘other’. In its place the theologically specified notion of hospitality is proposed. In the process of doing this, the article addresses three questions: is there an inherent contradiction between liberal philosophies of education and the promotion of tolerance? Is tolerance the best way to enable genuine respect for the ‘other’? And is tolerance something Christians should (...) promote? To address these question, first, definitions of tolerance are assessed; second, the relationship between tolerance and autonomy is analysed; third, an account of how hospitality is conceived within the Christian tradition is set out; and lastly, hospitality and tolerance are contrasted in theory and practice. The article ends by drawing some conclusions for the practice of education. (shrink)

Two options are ‘incommensurate’ when neither is better than the other, but they are not equally good. Typically, we will say that one option is better in some ways, and the other in others, but neither is better ‘all things considered’. It is tempting to think that incommensurability is vagueness—that it is (perhaps) indeterminate which is better—but this ‘vagueness view’ of incommensurability has not proven popular. I set out the vagueness view and its implications in more detail, and argue that (...) it can explain most of the puzzling features of incommensurability. This argument proceeds without appeal to John Broome’s ‘collapsing principle’. (shrink)

Since the COVID‐19 pandemic, ongoing reports have highlighted the urgency of addressing anti‐Black racism within Canada's healthcare system. The paucity of research within a Canadian context has created growing concerns among Millennials and Generation Zs for healthcare to address growing health disparities and health inequities that are attributed to institutional and structural racism. Recognizing the paradigm shift that has occurred because of the pandemic and the sleuth of racial killings, the nursing classroom has witnessed a change and a need for (...) nursing education to be relevant for the cohort of nursing students who are seeking answers. The scarcity of nursing literature addressing diverse forms of learning demonstrates the need for nursing education to explore new ways of being diverse, inclusive and innovative when teaching intergenerationally. In this paper, the author challenges nurse educators to revisit the student–educator relationship by introducing critical digital pedagogy to dismantle anti‐Black racism and promote student–educator engagement for transformative learning to occur. As an educator, the author implements the use of digital illustration as a tool of resistance for students and educators to assess, engage, act and reflect on creating change within nursing education. Using Black feminist thought and culturally responsive learning, the author introduces an arts‐based approach through the innovative design of an illustration, titled, ‘Ain't I a Nurse. Combining historical stories with contemporary socio‐political experiences, the author demonstrates how students and educators can enter a cognitive learning experience where they can connect mentally and emotionally, and in so doing re‐envision and recreate a new world that centralizes equity, diversity and inclusivity through critical discourses. Through the illustration anti‐Black racism is challenged and anti‐Black racism resistance is discovered as an antidote in dismantling anti‐Black racism within nursing education. (shrink)

In Conservatism and Pragmatism, Seth Vannatta posits and explores several major conceptual and practical affinities between classical pragmatism and conservatism. Characterizing both as essentially methods rather than ideologies, he argues that the two ought to be understood as mutually supportive and corrective, and that they conjointly supply an especially robust set of intellectual resources relevant to contemporary moral, political, and legal concerns. This essay critically examines Vannatta’s marriage of conservatism and pragmatism in the realm of legal theory. It argues that (...) while Vannatta’s work provides a rigorous pragmatist alternative to the familiar legal formalism adopted by many American conservatives, its foundations may be narrower than Vannatta appreciates and the resulting theory may have little necessary connection to the dispositional, methodological conservatism upon which it is purportedly based. (shrink)

When asked to describe wartime atrocities, terrorist acts, and serial killers, many of us reach for the word 'evil'. But what does it really mean? Luke Russell defends a new account of the nature of evil action and persons. Although the concept of evil is extreme and often misused, it has a legitimate place in contemporary secular moral thought.

There is a longstanding debate between those who think that cognition extends into the external environment and those who think it is located squarely within the individual. Recently, a new actor has emerged on the scene, one that looks to play kingmaker. Predictive processing says that the mind/brain is fundamentally engaged in a process of minimising the difference between what is predicted about the world and how the world actually is, what is known as ‘prediction error minimisation’. The goal of (...) this paper is to articulate a novel approach to extended cognition using the resources of PP. After outlining two recent proposals from Constant et al. and Kirchhoff and Kiverstein, I argue that the case for extended cognition can be further developed by interpreting certain elements of the PP story as a “mark of the cognitive”. The suggestion is that when construed at an ‘algorithmic level’ PEM offers a direct route to thinking about extended systems as genuine cognitive systems. On route to articulating the proposal, I lay out the core argument, defend the proposal’s novelty, and point to several of the advantages of the formulation. Finally, I conclude by taking up two challenges raised by Hohwy about the prospects of using PEM to argue for extended cognition. (shrink)

Moving deftly among literary and visual arts, as well as the modern critical canon, Christopher Prendergast's book explores the meaning and value of representation as both a philosophical challenge (What does it mean to create an image that "stands for" something absent?) and a political issue (Who has the right to represent whom?). _The Triangle of Representation_ raises a range of theoretical, historical, and aesthetic questions, and offers subtle readings of such cultural critics as Raymond Williams, Paul de Man, (...) Edward Said, Walter Benjamin, and Hélène Cixous, in addition to penetrating investigations of visual artists like Gros, Ingres, and Matisse and significant insights into Proust and the onus of translating him. Above all, Prendergast's work is a striking display of how a firm grounding in theory is essential for the exploration of art and literature. (shrink)

What are we? Will Durant makes one answer; H.C.Menken another, the Scientific American a third; and others none. Mr. Prendergast has agreed to furnish theSCHOOLMAN with his idea of what "Genus Scholasticus" is like. What do you think of his conclusions?

The starting point in the development of probabilistic analyses of token causation has usually been the naïve intuition that, in some relevant sense, a cause raises the probability of its effect. But there are well-known examples both of non-probability-raising causation and of probability-raising non-causation. Sophisticated extant probabilistic analyses treat many such cases correctly, but only at the cost of excluding the possibilities of direct non-probability-raising causation, failures of causal transitivity, action-at-a-distance, prevention, and causation by absence and omission. I show that (...) an examination of the structure of these problem cases suggests a different treatment, one which avoids the costs of extant probabilistic analyses. (shrink)

The use of deception and dishonesty is widely accepted as a fact of life in policing. This paper thus defends a counterintuitive claim: Good faith is a normative foundation for the police as a political institution. Good faith is a core value of contracts, and policing is contractual in nature both broadly (as a matter of social contract theory) and narrowly (in regard to concrete encounters between law enforcement officers and the public). Given the centrality of good faith to policing, (...) dishonesty and deception on par with fraud are justified only as a narrowly circumscribed investigative tool that is constrained by institutional commitments to the fair distribution of security and the rule of law. The practical upshot is the preclusion of most dishonest and deceptive police tactics on par with fraud, leading to an institution that is less proactive and more reactive. (shrink)

This work considers the ways in which, throughout human history, maps have defined our limits as much as charted our exploration. These images act as a kind of ghost vision – a spectral overlay of the world created and accessed as data sets, satellite imagery, and geopolitical mapping, merged in an algorithmically generated 3D mesh. This brings with it a view of the world in which complementary and competing navigational vectors collage and collide. Yet, for all its apparent hyper-modern otherness, (...) its novelty and dexterity is still oriented around and contingent upon the temporal and electromagnetic limits of our biological inheritance. (shrink)

A significant debate has developed around the question: What are the moral limits of the market? This paper argues that this debate proceeds on a mistake. Both those who oppose specific markets and those who defend them, adopt the same deficient approach. Participants illicitly proceed from an assessment of the transactions making up a market to a judgment of that market’s permissibility. This inference is unlicensed. We may know everything there is to know about the transactions in a specific market—they (...) might all be absolutely bad—but we will not yet know whether that market should be prohibited. To discern this, to establish that intervention in to some specific market is justifiable, one must supply a rather different assessment. One must compare the outcome in which that market is permitted with the best outcome available in its absence. None in this debate has offered such a judgment. (shrink)