Philosophy has much to offer psychiatry, not least regarding ethical issues, but also issues regarding the mind, identity, values, and volition. This has become only more important as we have witnessed the growth and power of the pharmaceutical industry, accompanied by developments in the neurosciences. However, too few practising psychiatrists are familiar with the literature in this area. -/- The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry offers the most comprehensive reference resource for this area ever published. It assembles challenging and (...) insightful contributions from key philosophers and others to the interactive fields of philosophy and psychiatry. Each contributions is original, stimulating, thorough, and clearly and engagingly written - with no potentially significant philosophical stone left unturned. Broad in scope, the book includes coverage of several areas of philosophy, including philosophy of mind, science, and ethics. For philosophers and psychiatrists, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry is a landmark publication in the field - one that will be of value to both students and researchers in this rapidly growing area. (shrink)

This paper outlines new work in cross-cultural psychology largely drawn from Nisbett, Choi, and Smith (Cognition, 65, 15–32, 1997); Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, Psychological Review, 108(2), 291–310, 2001; Nisbett, The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why. New York: Free Press 2003), Ji, Zhang and Nisbett (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(1), 57–65, 2004), Norenzayan (2000) and Peng (Naive Dialecticism and its Effects on Reasoning and Judgement about Contradiction. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 1997) (...) Peng and Nisbett (Cross-Cultural Similarities and Differences in the Understanding of Physical Causality. Paper presented at the Science and Culture: Proceedings of the Seventh Interdisciplinary Conference on Science and Culture, Frankfort, K. Y. 1996), and Peng, Ames, & Knowles (Culture and Human Inference: Perspectives from three traditions. In: D. Matsumoto (Ed.), Handbook of Cross-Cultural Psychology (pp. 1–2). Oxford: Oxford University Press 2000). The paper argues that the findings on cultural influences on inference-making have implications for teaching and education generally, and specifically for the debate on conceptions and misconceptions of Asian students studying in western tertiary institutions around the world. The position defended is that, while there seems to be compelling empirical evidence for intercultural differences in thought patterns, these patterns are, for the most part, insignificant in everyday exchanges, though language and culture might subtlety modulate our inference-making at the margins. Linguistic determinism however is not defended. Nonetheless, the evidence provides food for thought, and it needs to inform the recent debates about international students studying overseas. (shrink)

Strong evidence shows that exposure and engagement with the natural world not only improve human wellbeing but can also help promote environmentally friendly behaviors. Human-nature relationships are at the heart of global agendas promoted by international organizations including the World Health Organization’s “One Health” and the United Nations “Ocean Decade.” These agendas demand collaborative multisector interdisciplinary efforts at local, national, and global levels. However, while global agendas highlight global goals for a sustainable world, developing science that directly addresses these agendas (...) from design through to delivery and outputs does not come without its challenges. In this article, we present the outcomes of international meetings between researchers, stakeholders, and policymakers from the United Kingdom and Brazil. We propose a model for interdisciplinary work under such global agendas, particularly the interface between One Health and the UN Ocean Decade and identify three priority research areas closely linked to each other: human-nature connection, conservation-human behavior, and implementation strategies. We also discuss a number of recommendations for moving forward. (shrink)

The question posed by Dunn and Kirsner (D&K) is an instance of a more general one: What can we infer from data? One answer, if we are talking about logically valid deductive inference, is that we cannot infer theories from data. A theory is supposed to explain the data and so cannot be a mere summary of the data to be explained. The truth of an explanatory theory goes beyond the data and so is never logically guaranteed by the data. (...) This is not just a point about cognitive neuropsychology, or even about psychology in general. It is a familiar point about all science. (shrink)

The question posed by Dunn and Kirsner (D&K) is an instance of a more general one: What can we infer from data? One answer, if we are talking about logically valid deductive inference, is that we cannot infer theories from data. A theory is supposed to explain the data and so cannot be a mere summary of the data to be explained. The truth of an explanatory theory goes beyond the data and so is never logically guaranteed by the data. (...) This is not just a point about cognitive neuropsychology, or even about psychology in general. It is a familiar point about all science. (shrink)

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, shortages of scarce healthcare resources consistently presented significant moral and practical challenges. While the importance of vaccines as a key pharmaceutical intervention to stem pandemic scarcity was widely publicized, a sizable proportion of the population chose not to vaccinate. In response, some have defended the use of vaccination status as a criterion for the allocation of scarce medical resources. In this paper, we critically interpret this burgeoning literature, and describe a framework for thinking about vaccine-sensitive resource (...) allocation using the values of responsibility, reciprocity, and justice. Although our aim here is not to defend a single view of vaccine-sensitive resource allocation, we believe that attending critically with the diversity of arguments in favor (and against) vaccine-sensitivity reveals a number of questions that a vaccine-sensitive approach to allocation should answer in future pandemics. (shrink)

Francesco Guala has developed some novel and radical ideas on the problem of external validity, a topic that has not received much attention in the experimental economics literature. In this paper I argue that his views on external validity are not justified and the conclusions which he draws from these views, if widely adopted, could substantially undermine the experimental economics enterprise. In rejecting the justification of these views, the paper reaffirms the importance of experiments in economics.

Résumé Le problème de Duhem-Quine a été considéré comme un problème majeur de la philosophie des sciences et a donné lieu au déploiement de nombreux efforts pour tenter de le circonvenir ou d’affaiblir ses implications. Plus récemment, le problème est devenu une question majeure au sein de la méthodologie de l’économie expérimentale. Dans cet article, l’auteur soutient que la plupart de ces discussions soit sacrifient trop du pouvoir explicatif de la science, soit ne réussissent pas à traiter proprement du problème. (...) Dans le prolongement de discussions récentes en philosophie des sciences, on peut voir que le meilleur moyen de traiter du problème est de critiquer la conception même de la science développée par Quine. JEL Classification : B41. (shrink)

We provide and interpret a new measure independent characterization of the Gödel speed-up phenomenon. In particular, we prove a theorem that demonstrates the indifference of the concept of a measure independent Gödel speed-up to an apparent weakening of its definition that is obtained by requiring only those measures appearing in some fixed Blum complexity measure to participate in the speed-up, and by deleting the “for all r” condition from the definition so as to relax the required amount of speed-up. We (...) interpret our results as correlating the relative difficulty of mechanically recognizing theories with the relative power and the relative abstractness of the theories. We conclude by providing two open problems concerning possible similarities and relationships between the Blum speedability and Gödel speed-up phenomena. MSC: 03D15, 03F20. (shrink)

We study the measure independent character of Godel speed-up theorems. In particular, we strengthen Arbib's necessary condition for the occurrence of a Godel speed-up [2, p. 13] to an equivalence result and generalize Di Paola's speed-up theorem [4]. We also characterize undecidable theories as precisely those theories which possess consistent measure independent Godel speed-ups and show that a theory τ 2 is a measure independent Godel speed-up of a theory τ 1 if and only if the set of undecidable sentences (...) of τ 1 which are provable in τ 2 is not recursively enumerable. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 10, October 2019, Page 88-90.

The concept of mimesis has been central to philosophical aesthetics from Aristotle to Kendall Walton: in plain terms, it highlights the links between a fictional world or a representational practice on the one hand and the real world on the other. The present collection of essays includes discussions of its general viability and pertinence and of its historical origins, as well as detailed analyses of various relevant issues regarding literature, film, theatre, images and computer games. The individual papers offer new (...) arguments for the specialist, yet in their sum also provide a solid and helpful survey of the current state of the debate. Contributions by P. Alward, G. Currie, D. Davies, L. Dole el, J. Hamilton, T. Kobli ek, P. Kot'atko, A. Kuzmicova, J. Levinson, A. Meskin, A. Pettersson, M. Pokorny, J. Robson, G. Rossholm, R. M. Sainsbury, F. Stjernberg, E. Terrone, K. Thein, A. Voltolini. (shrink)

Anosognosia is literally ‘unawareness of or failure to acknowledge one’s hemi- plegia or other disability’ (OED). Etymology would suggest the meaning ‘lack of knowledge of disease’ so that anosognosia would include any denial of impairment, such as denial of blindness (Anton’s syndrome). But Babinski, who introduced the term in 1914, applied it only to patients with hemiplegia who fail to acknowledge their paralysis. Most commonly, this is failure to acknowledge paralysis of the left side of the body following damage to (...) the right hemisphere of the brain. In this paper, we shall mainly be concerned with anosognosia for hemiplegia. But we shall also use the term ‘anosognosia’ in an inclusive way to encompass lack of knowledge or acknowledgement of any impairment. Indeed, in the construction ‘anosognosia for X’, X might even be anosognosia for some Y. (shrink)

Background: Despite procedural innovations and increasing numbers of uterus transplant attempts worldwide, the perspectives of uterus transplant (UTx) trial participants are lacking. Methods: We conducted a mixed-methods study with women with absolute uterine factor infertility (AUFI). Participants included women who had previously contacted the Cleveland Clinic regarding the Uterine Transplant Trial and met the initial eligibility criteria for participation. In-depth interviews were conducted in conjunction with FertiQoL, a validated and widely used tool to measure the impact of infertility on the (...) quality of life of infertility patients. Results: All (n = 19) rated their overall health as good; some experienced grief and social isolation. AUFI is a life-framing experience that influences acceptance by family, partners, peers, and one’s self. UTx is a means to gain control of reproductive autonomy. UTx allows family-building and the ability to play an active role in prenatal health and well-being. Establishing and maintaining a supportive relationship is a key issue of AUFI and when considering UTx. Risks of UTx are perceived relative to risks to self/child/family posed by adoption/surrogacy. Participants had no overall preference regarding living or deceased donor. Conclusions: The ways in which women with AUFI conceptualize this condition in their lives and choices around UTx and participating in a study of the procedure are multifaceted and textured. These perspectives are critical to understanding its ethical, legal, and social implications. (shrink)