Belief in conspiracy theories is typically considered irrational, and as a consequence of this, conspiracy theorists––those who dare believe some conspiracy theory––have been charged with a variety of epistemic or psychological failings. Yet recent philosophical work has challenged the view that belief in conspiracy theories should be considered as typically irrational. By performing an intra-group analysis of those people we call “conspiracy theorists”, we find that the problematic traits commonly ascribed to the general group of conspiracy theorists turn out to (...) be merely a set of stereotypical behaviours and thought patterns associated with a purported subset of that group. If we understand that the supposed prob- lem of belief in conspiracy theories is centred on the beliefs of this purported sub- set––the conspiracists––then we can reconcile the recent philosophical contribu- tions to the wider academic debate on the rationality of belief in conspiracy theories. (shrink)

The contributors to this volume argue that whilst there is a commonplace superstition conspiracy theories are examples of bad beliefs (and that the kind of people who believe conspiracy theories are typically irrational), many conspiracy theories are rational to believe: the members of the Dewey Commission were right to say that the Moscow Trials of the 1930s were a sham; Woodward and Bernstein were correct to think that Nixon was complicit in the conspiracy to deny any wrongdoing in the Watergate (...) Hotel break in; and if we either accept the terrorist events of 9/11 were committed by Al-Qaeda, or that the Bush Administration was responsible, then it seems we are endorsing some theory about a conspiracy to commit an act of terror on American soil. As such, there is no reason to reject conspiracy theories sui generis. This volume challenges the prima facie that conspiracy theories are irrational beliefs, arguing that we should treat conspiracy theories and the phenomena of conspiracy theories seriously. It presents fresh perspectives from the wider philosophical, sociological and psychological community on what is becoming an issue of increasing relevance in our time. (shrink)

Conspiracy theories are typically thought to be examples of irrational beliefs, and thus unlikely to be warranted. However, recent work in Philosophy has challenged the claim that belief in conspiracy theories is irrational, showing that in a range of cases, belief in conspiracy theories is warranted. However, it is still often said that conspiracy theories are unlikely relative to non-conspiratorial explanations which account for the same phenomena. However, such arguments turn out to rest upon how we define what gets counted (...) both as a ‘conspiracy’ and a ‘conspiracy theory’, and such arguments rest upon shaky assumptions. It turns out that it is not clear that conspiracy theories are prima facie unlikely, and so the claim that such theories do not typically appear in our accounts of the best explanations for particular kinds of events needs to be reevaluated. (shrink)

Schuklenk and van de Vathorst's paper is a very welcome addition to the literature on the assisted dying debate and will be of great interest to clinicians working in the field of mental health.1 Many psychiatrists will have had patients who have asked them to allow them to die, to desist in their efforts to prevent their suicide, and one of us has had personal experience, outside of professional life, of being asked to aid in someone's attempt to end their (...) life in the context of an episode of mood disorder. The person with depression asking professionals, friends and family members to aid them in ending their life is a very real phenomenon. In their discussion, Schuklenk and van de Vathorst's paper uses two principles that we endorse and add weight to their argument: namely, the reality of suffering in depression and the parity of mental and physical illness. Indeed, the case Schuklenk and van de Vathorst make is a strong one and our commentary will focus on the premise of the argument around choosing death and some empirical clarification about competence in depression and the nature of treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and its prognosis. The conceptual concern we wish to discuss in relation to assisted dying, endorsed by the state and legislature, is not linked to any moral or religious concern, or even on grounds related to ‘slippery slope’ or ‘abuse’ arguments. Rather the worry is how one could operationalise decisions around assisted dying as based on competence and capacity and view such decisions as rational. I think this concern is not limited to depressive illness, but to all decisions regarding choosing non-existence. Schuklenk and van de Vathorst offer the following useful criteria to regulate assisted suicide:1. (shrink)

In the literature on conspiracy theories, the least contentious part of the academic discourse would appear to be what we mean by a “conspiracy”: a secretive plot between two or more people toward some end. Yet what, exactly, is the connection between something being a conspiracy and it being secret? Is it possible to conspire without also engaging in secretive behavior? To dissect the role of secrecy in con- spiracies – and thus contribute to the larger debate on the epistemology (...) of conspir- acy theories – we dene the concepts of “conspiracy,” “conspirator,” and “secret,” and argue that while conspirators might typically be thought to commit to keeping secrets once their conspiracy is underway, the idea that conspiracies are necessarily secretive to start with is not as obvious as previously thought. (shrink)

A reply to Patrick Stokes' “Between Generalism and Particularism About Conspiracy Theory".

A response to Lee Basham's 'The Need for Accountable Witnesses: A Reply to Dentith'.

Since the nineteenth century, hominid palaeontology has offered critical information about prehistoric humans and evidence for human evolution. Human fossils discovered at a time when there was growing agreement that humans existed during the Ice Age became especially significant but also controversial. This paper argues that the techniques used to study human fossils from the 1850s to the 1870s and the way that these specimens were interpreted owed much to the anthropological examination of Stone, Bronze, and Iron Age skeletons retrieved (...) by archaeologists from prehistoric tombs throughout Europe. What emerged was the idea that a succession of distinct human races, which were identified using techniques such as craniometry, had occupied and migrated into Europe beginning in the Ice Age and continuing into the historic period. This marks a phase in the history of human palaeontology that gradually gave way to a science of palaeoanthropology that viewed hominid fossils more from the perspective of evolutionary theory and hominid phylogeny. (shrink)

This article poses a challenge to the assumption that all conceptions of the imago Dei are practical, meaning that they can coherently provide a guide for human action. The article identifies three criteria for practicality and applies them to two accounts of the imago, one in the thought of the twentieth-century theologian Helmut Thielicke, the other in the Roman Catholic tradition. It argues that Thielicke’s account of the imago, which forms the basis for what he calls ‘alien dignity’, fails to (...) meet the criteria of practicality, and thus cannot serve as an adequate guide for action. In contrast, the account of the imago and human dignity in the Roman Catholic tradition does meet the criteria. This comparison, the article concludes, ultimately helps provide a means of assessing diverse theological interpretations of the imago and their value for supporting a morally useful conception of human worth. (shrink)

A reply to Gérald Bronner, Véronique Campion-Vincent, Sylvain Delouvée, Sebastian Dieguez, Nicolas Gauvrit, Anthony Lantian, and Pascal Wagner-Egger's piece, '“They” Respond: Comments on Basham et al.’s “Social Science’s Conspiracy-Theory Panic: Now They Want to Cure Everyone”.

In this article, we focus on a particular kind of emotional impact of the pandemic, namely the phenomenology of the experience of moral injury in healthcare professionals. Drawing on Weber's reflections in his lecture Politics as a Vocation and data from the Experiences of Social Distancing during the COVID-19 Pandemic Survey, we analyse responses from healthcare professionals which show the experiences of burnout, sense of frustration and impotence, and how these affect clinicians’ emotional state. We argue that this may relate (...) to the ethical conflicts they experience when they are forced to make clinical decisions where there are no optimal outcomes, and how in turn that impacts on their own emotional state. We then further examine the notion of ‘burnout’ and the phenomenology of ‘moral injury’. Our argument is that these experiences of moral injury across a range of clinicians during the pandemic may be more prevalent and long-standing in psychiatry and mental health than in other areas of healthcare, where ethically difficult decisions and resource constraints are common outside times of crisis. Hence, in these clinical arenas, moral injury and the phenomenology of emotional changes may be independent of the pandemic. The insights gained during the pandemic may provide wider insights into the challenges of developing services and training the workforce to provide appropriate mental health care. (shrink)

Typical analyses of belief in conspiracy theories have it that identifying as a conspiracy theorist is irrational. However, given that we know conspiracies occur, and theories about said conspiracies can be warranted, should we really be scared of the locution 'I'm a conspiracy theorist...'?

Various authors have argued that progress in the neurocognitive and neuropsychiatric sciences might threaten the commonsense understanding of how the mind generates behavior, and, as a consequence, it might also threaten the commonsense ways of attributing moral responsibility, if not the very notion of moral responsibility. In the case of actions that result in undesirable outcomes, the commonsense conception—which is reflected in sophisticated ways in the legal conception—tells us that there are circumstances in which the agent is entirely and fully (...) responsible for the bad outcome and circumstances in which the agent is not at all responsible for the bad outcome. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Seductiveness of Virtue: Abraham Joshua Heschel and John Paul II on Morality and Personal Fulfillment by John J. FitzgeraldMatthew R. PetrusekThe Seductiveness of Virtue: Abraham Joshua Heschel and John Paul II on Morality and Personal Fulfillment John J. Fitzgerald new york: bloomsbury t&t clark, 2017. 240 pp. $114The Seductiveness of Virtue offers a close study of the twentieth-century Polish-American rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and the first Polish (...) pope, St. John Paul II, on the relationship between being good and being happy. Overall the book advances the conversation on the meaning and continued relevance of virtue in contemporary ethics, though its eagerness to build bridges across competing religious and philosophical traditions opens the argument to both methodological and substantive criticisms. [End Page 206]Fitzgerald divides the book into an introduction and four chapters. Chapter 1, "The Meaning of Our Question," establishes the definitions of concepts that Fitzgerald addresses throughout the rest his argument, including "happiness," "meaning," "freedom," "personal fulfillment," "good and evil," and "doing." Fitzgerald locates each term within the theologies of Heschel and John Paul II and provides his own definitions. Chapter 2, "Heschel and the 'Joys of Mitsvah,'" enters more deeply into Heschel's theology, arguing that, despite some ambiguity about whether morality will always lead to personal fulfillment, Heschel establishes a firm theological and practical connection between following the law (mitzvah) and being happy. Chapter 3, "John Paul II and the Good We Must Do to Have Eternal Life," engages in a similar analysis of John Paul's thought (including his writings before becoming pope) and, despite using different theological categories (chief among them "Christ"), arrives at a similar conclusion: there is a necessary connection between being good and being happy. Chapter 4, which also functions as a conclusion, places the comparison between Heschel and John Paul into a wider comparative context, examining how their respective conclusions on morality and the good relate to insights from other contemporary perspectives, including the Dalai Lama, Peter Singer, and present-day "positive psychology." Fitzgerald concludes by offering five reasons why it is important to continue, in his words, an "interworldview" and "interdisciplinary" dialogue on how virtue relates to happiness.The book is richly sourced—containing 199 footnotes, bibliography, and detailed index—and serves as a good addition to the libraries of those working on John Paul II, Abraham Heschel, virtue theory, or comparative ethics more broadly. Yet its breadth on the comparative front also highlights its vulnerabilities, particularly on the question of what defines the relationship between virtue and happiness from a normative perspective. While providing lucid descriptive accounts of different conceptions of God and the good, for example, Fitzgerald acknowledges near the book's conclusion, "whether one finds [any] author persuasive will depend in large part on one's prior conclusions about the existence and nature of God and the afterlife" (184) and notes that this topic "cannot be resolved or even explored here" (185). However, these "prior conclusions" themselves are ultimately most meaningful for answering the book's central question.This reticence to engage in meta-ethical questions also leads the text to a problematic epistemological and ethical equalizing of each perspective, one that allows Fitzgerald to claim, for example, "while there is much common ground between Heschel, John Paul II, and [Peter] Singer on the relationship between morality and fulfillment, there are also key differences" (174). Here Fitzgerald understates the contrast: one of the "key" differences between Singer's utilitarian materialism and John Paul II's gospel of life is that Singer's position could serve as a paradigmatic representation of the "culture of death" [End Page 207] that John Paul spent his papacy resisting. Thus, while providing an excellent analysis of each thinker individually, the book's argument would benefit from establishing a firmer and more transparent standard for evaluating ethical claims across traditions.Matthew R. PetrusekLoyola Marymount UniversityCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Most philosophical defences of the state’s right to exclude immigrants derive their strength from the normative importance of self-determination. If nation-states are taken to be the political institutions of a people, then the state’s right to exclude is the people’s right to exclude – and a denial of this right constitutes an abridgement of self-determination. In this paper, I argue that this view of self-determination does not cohere with a group-agency view of nation-states. On the group-agency view that I defend, (...) a nation-state is the kind of group-agent that does not supervene on the intentionality of member/citizens. If we think that a nation-state is an intentional group-agent in its own right, then we should think that self-determination resides with the institutions of the state rather than with the citizens. If nation-states do not supervene on the intentionality of citizens, then it is unclear why citizens might have the right to control membership in the state as a feature of self-determination. (shrink)

A reply to Patrick Stokes' 'Reluctance and Suspicion'—itself a reply to an early piece by myself replying to Stokes—in which I clarify what it is I intend when talking about how we should investigate conspiracy theories.

Health professionals are involved in humanitarian assistance and development work in many regions of the world. They participate in primary health care, immunization campaigns, clinic- and hospital-based care, rehabilitation and feeding programs. In the course of this work, clinicians are frequently exposed to complex ethical issues. This paper examines how health workers experience ethics in the course of humanitarian assistance and development work. A qualitative study was conducted to consider this question. Five core themes emerged from the data, including: tension (...) between respecting local customs and imposing values; obstacles to providing adequate care; differing understandings of health and illness; questions of identity for health workers; and issues of trust and distrust. Recommendations are made for organizational strategies that could help aid agencies support and equip their staff as they respond to ethical issues. (shrink)

This imagined conversation between Sir Isaac Newton and the priestess Diotima examines the possible merits of reductionism in scientific inquiry, finding it of value both as a methodology for the simplification of scientific explanations and for the decisive elimination of metaphysically extravagant scientific hypotheses. However, the power and narrative appeal of reductionism renders its overuse a perennial danger. Science thus needs reductionism, but also needs reminding that its task is to explain natural phenomena, not to explain them away.

Western Kansas is one of the most important agricultural regions in the world. Most agricultural production in this semi-arid region depends on the consumption of nonrenewable groundwater from the High Plains Aquifer, which will be 70 % depleted by 2070. The problem of depletion has drawn significant attention from local citizens and policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels for at least 40 years, resulting in a variety of policies and institutions to manage groundwater from the aquifer as a (...) common pool resource. Yet depletion has persisted. We explain this conundrum as an outcome of a mismatch between the scale of resource management, which has become more intensively local, and the scale of resource exchange, which has rendered the High Plains Aquifer a global common pool resource. We then explain the deeper, structural origins of the management–exchange scale mismatch. Drawing on concepts from structural human ecology theory and empirical evidence from Southwest Kansas, we show that agriculture is predicated on local metabolic rift in the hydrological cycle that is exacerbated through ecological unequal exchange with higher-income, core areas beyond the region. We conclude by highlighting two key policies that, if implemented together, may lessen the deleterious effects of these structural dynamics and thus promote a more sustainable relationship between society and environment in this region and other water-scarce regions that are net-exporters of groundwater. (shrink)

Previous findings indicate that negative arousal enhances bottom-up attention biases favouring perceptual salient stimuli over less salient stimuli. The current study tests whether those effects were driven by emotional arousal or by negative valence by comparing how well participants could identify visually presented letters after hearing either a negative arousing, positive arousing or neutral sound. On each trial, some letters were presented in a high contrast font and some in a low contrast font, creating a set of targets that differed (...) in perceptual salience. Sounds rated as more emotionally arousing led to more identification of highly salient letters but not of less salient letters, whereas sounds’ valence ratings did not impact salience biases. Thus, arousal, rather than valence, is a key factor enhancing visual processing of perceptually salient targets. (shrink)

In this article, we present an ethics framework for health practice in humanitarian and development work: the ethics of engaged presence. The ethics of engaged presence framework aims to articulate in a systematic fashion approaches and orientations that support the engagement of expatriate health care professionals in ways that align with diverse obligations and responsibilities, and promote respectful and effective action and relationships. Drawn from a range of sources, the framework provides a vocabulary and narrative structure for examining the moral (...) dimensions of providing development or humanitarian health assistance to individuals and communities, and working with and alongside local and international actors. The elements also help minimize or avoid certain miscalculations and harms. Emphasis is placed on the shared humanity of those who provide and those who receive assistance, acknowledgement of limits and risks related to the contributions of expatriate health care professionals, and the importance of providing skillful and relevant assistance. These elements articulate a moral posture for expatriate health care professionals that contributes to orienting the practice of clinicians in ways that reflect respect, humility, and solidarity. Health care professionals whose understanding and actions are consistent with the ethics of engaged presence will be oriented toward introspection and reflective practice and toward developing, sustaining and promoting collaborative partnerships. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 11.1 (2004) 35-41 [Access article in PDF] The Rationality of Psychosis and Understanding the Deluded Matthew R. Broome Campbell's important and influential paper (Campbell 2001) has framed the debate that Bayne and Pacherie (2004) most explicitly, and Klee (2004) and Georgaca (2004) more implicitly, engage in. Campbell has offered two broad ways of thinking about explanations of delusions—the empirical and the rational. He offers (...) some criticism of the former and an endorsement of the latter. Campbell uses examples from clinical psychopathology to illustrate his argument and Bayne and Pacherie in turn employ these. Campbell discusses the eponymously named delusions of Capgras and Cotard—the former a subtype of delusional misidentification and the latter a delusion whose content is colored predominantly with nihilistic and possibly hypochondriacal themes. Campbell, Bayne and Pacherie, and Klee discuss the empirical data in relation to such delusions and as an aid to discussing the empirical model more generally. It does seem a little unfortunate that these delusions, which are less than typical, become the focus of Campbell's paper, and Bayne and Pacherie's criticism of his work. Delusions are remarkably heterogeneous; this indeed may be part of the reason why there is so much difficulty in reaching a definition as Klee discusses, and occur in a wide variety of mental and neurological illnesses. The most common delusions are those of persecution and reference (World Health Organization [WHO] 1973) and typically occur in schizophrenia. By contrast, delusional misidentification occurs most commonly in patients with dementia, delirium, and focal cognitive impairment, but can occur in other functional psychoses such as an affective or schizophrenic psychosis. The most common form of delusional misidentification is not that of either the exotic Capgras or Fregoli syndromes but delusional misidentification for place; thus, although Bayne and Pacherie's arguments against Campbell may still hold, delusional misidentification tends to occur in the context of a patient believing that they are at home or on holiday rather than in hospital and may not necessarily involve close family members or other intimate relationships. Similarly, Cotard's syndrome tends to occur in the context of a severe depressive illness with mood-congruent psychotic symptoms, typically in an elderly individual. It does not have to have the content that the deluded is dead, but can include beliefs, for example, that the world no longer exists or that their internal organs are not present. Thus, a patient with either Capgras' or Cotard's syndrome is likely to differ from patients with delusions of persecution. They would [End Page 35] have different diagnoses, probably be older, and have a greater likelihood of structural abnormalities of the brain on imaging and consequent neuropsychological dysfunction. That is not to say that patients with schizophrenia have normal cerebral anatomy and neuropsychology, but rather that the Capgras' and Cotard's patients are likely to have neurological quality to their presentation that is clinically relevant, rather than what commonly the case in schizophrenia and the other functional psychoses, where the neurological abnormalities are only currently important at the level of academic research. Empirical Models of Delusion Formation Different delusions may not have that much in common, nor may the patients who believe in them. This in turn relates to the empirical paradigm that both Campbell and Bayne and Pacherie discuss. It is true that current research, and indeed the clinical practice of cognitive behavioral therapy for psychosis, is indebted to the work of Maher and it is within his legacy which we work. This, however, is not to say that we think his initial formulation was correct. Maher's (1988, 1992) work focused attempts in explaining delusions—both to support and refute his thesis that delusions are the consequence of normal cognitive mechanisms seeking to explain an anomalous sensory experience. Such a view initially led to work demonstrating delusions in the absence of anomalous perceptions, the presence of reasoning biases in the deluded population, and the possibility that abnormal sensory experience may be consequent upon biased cognitive processes (Garety and Freeman 1999). More recent work has demonstrated the prevalence of... (shrink)

The contemporary methodological debate about justice has centered around a dispute about the value of so-called ideal theory. I argue that justice performs a social-guiding function, which explains how people should respond to their limited and fallible abilities to realize justice institutionally. My argument helps to re-orientate the contemporary methodological debate. The obvious disagreement between many prominent supporters and skeptics of ideal theory obscures the fact that they are united by a false assumption: the practical value of justice exclusively consists (...) of its institution-guiding function. To capture the overlooked social-guiding function, a richer normative theory of justice is required; I show how such a theory can be supplied by “ideal-transitional” principles. (shrink)

In this paper I propose a novel defence of political cosmopolitanism grounded in a familiar principle: universal moral equality. Critics of cosmopolitanism generally agree to universal moral equality, but disagree about what moral equality means politically. According to my argument, if we accept that all people are morally equal, then we ought to accept their equal moral standing. We should therefore prefer socio-political arrangements that reflect the equal moral standing of all people over those that reflect differentiated moral standing. A (...) reasonable cosmopolitanism need not preclude partialist attachment to co-nationals, or undermine the significance of self-determination, so long as political arrangements do not produce differentiated moral standing. As the political application of an uncontroversial moral principle, I defend reasonable cosmopolitanism against nationalism and statism. Neither of these, I argue, are suitable foundations for global justice in migration because they each conceive of justice as a local concern for insiders. (shrink)

Healthcare user fees present an important barrier for accessing services for the poorest (indigents) in Burkina Faso and selective removal of fees has been incorporated in national healthcare planning. However, establishing fair, effective and sustainable mechanisms for the removal of user fees presents important challenges. A participatory action-research project was conducted in Ouargaye, Burkina Faso, to test mechanisms for identifying those who are indigents, and funding and implementing user fee removal. In this paper, we explore stakeholder perceptions of ethical considerations (...) relating to participation and partnership arising in the action-research. (shrink)

The papers included in the thesis, and summarized in this covering document, were selected, in discussion with my supervisor, Dr. Roessler, from papers I have published in the philosophy of psychiatry. In parallel to this philosophical work, I have worked clinically as a psychiatrist and academically as a research psychiatrist. My clinical work has largely been working with Early Intervention Services, both in South London and in Coventry and Warwickshire, and this work has been acting as a psychiatrist in clinical (...) teams who work with young people who may either be at risk of developing a psychotic illness, or are in the earliest stages of such an illness. My empirical work has been in the same clinical group and has used functional neuroimaging and cognitive neuropsychology to characterize those at risk of psychosis and to chart the onset of psychosis and the formation of delusions. As required by the university guidelines, a full list of publications, both empirical and philosophical, is detailed in appendix 1. The papers included in the thesis hence parallel many of these clinical and empirical interests: papers 2 and 4, in particular, examine the role neuroimaging may play in studying delusions and relate the prodromal phase of psychosis to both the neurodevelopmental and continuum models of psychosis. Paper 3 is one of two papers written with Lisa Bortolotti drawing on Richard Moran’s work and examining delusions. Paper 1 is perhaps the paper least connected to my empirical and clinical work as has a wider focus and tries to examine what mental illnesses are and to begin to describe a position Lisa Bortolotti and I later expanded on and referred to as ‘psychological realism’, with Paper 2 being a case example of this account being applied to a particular area of psychopathology, namely delusions. The papers form a progression with Paper 1 outlining a general conception of mental disorder, Paper 2 being a case study of this approach specifically in the area of delusion. Paper 3 takes the example of thought insertion and develops ideas from Paper 2 that reason giving is a crucial feature that helps highlight what is pathological about certain experiences. Paper 4 brings together the philosophical concerns regarding a wholly neuroscientific conception of psychopathology, and how this is of clinical and scientific relevance when we use psychopathology to demarcate the various stages of psychotic experience and illness. (shrink)

We support the goal to integrate models of culture and cognition. However, we are not convinced that the free energy principle and Thinking Through Other Minds will be useful in achieving it. There are long traditions of modeling both cultural evolution and cognition. Demonstrating that FEP or TTOM can integrate these models will require a bit more math.

Brings together and interprets previously hard-to-find texts, new translations and passages detailing the interplay between philosophy and psychopathology.

Much of classical Hindu thought has centered on the question of self: what is it, how does it relate to various features of the world, and how may we benefit by realizing its depths? Attempting to gain a conceptual foothold on selfhood, Hindu thinkers commonly suggest that its distinctive feature is consciousness (caitanya). Well-worn metaphors compare the self to light as its awareness illumines the world of knowable objects. Consciousness becomes a touchstone to recognize the presence of a self. A (...) rock is insentient, void of consciousness, and purely an object. Selves, however, are loci of awareness and thus subjects. Some schools, most notably classical Sāṁkhya and Advaita Vedānta, take this approach to its furthest conclusion: consciousness is not only unique to the self, but is the fundamental feature of selfhood. Other putative features of the self—feelings, memories, moral responsibility, and importantly, agency (kartṛtva)—are taken to be the impositions of insentient matter (prakṛti) or symptoms of primordial illusion (avidyā). Against this position, Nyāya defends a more robust notion of selfhood, placing qualities like desire, aversion, volition, and moral responsibility alongside cognition as the self’s distinctive qualities. These various aspects of selfhood come together neatly when we consider agency. An agent performs intentional actions under her volition, which is triggered by her own cognitive and affective states. Her volitional acts further generate moral consequences which she must bear, and which are, in the Indian context, embodied in the form of karmic merit and demerit. For Nyāya, agency is, therefore, a special expression of the self’s different capacities and potentialities, which coherently binds them together. Nyāya’s view is an important contribution to Indian theories of self as it is a counterpoint to what we may call exclusively cognitive accounts of selfhood in other influential Hindu schools, as noted above. The first half of this paper will consider Nyāya’s conception of agency in relation to selfhood. The second half will discuss Nyāya’s arguments with other Hindu schools—specifically Sāṁkhya—in support of the thesis that the self must be an agent as well as a knower. (shrink)

Plasticity of body representation fundamentally underpins human tool use. Recent studies have demonstrated remarkably complex plasticity of body representation in humans, showing that such plasticity (1) occurs flexibly across multiple time scales and (2) involves multiple body representations responding differently to tool use. Such findings reveal remarkable sophistication of body plasticity in humans, suggesting that Vaesen may overestimate the similarity of such mechanisms in humans and non-human primates.

This article seeks evidence of Herodotus's conception of his historical enterprise in the recurring scenes in which he portrays barbarian kings as inquirers and investigators. Through these scenes-involving most notably Psammetichus, Etearchus, Croesus, Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius, and Xerxes-the historian not only explores the character of autocrats, but also holds up a mirror to his own activity as inquirer. Once we recognize the metahistorical dimension of Herodotus's representation of inquiring kings, we can better understand the scenes in which these figures appear (...) and the historian who sees his own enterprise reflected or distorted in their efforts. I argue first that the tale of Darius's inquiry concerning the Paeonian wonder-woman is a paradigmatic Herodotean treatment of kingly inquiry in the way the historian both identifies with, and distances himself from, his kingly investigator. I then assess kingly research under three headings that reflect some of the many ways that Herodotean kings use and abuse investigation: Measurement and Self-Aggrandizement; Exploration and Conquest; Trial, Torture, and Test. Under the final rubric, kingly experiments are the focus, some involving human subjects , others involving the divine . Herodotus's extensive analysis of inquiring kings indicates that any earlier investigator-measurer, explorer, or experimenter-is a potential rival for him. If Herodotus is conscious that he is following in the footsteps of inquiring kings, however, his critique of their techniques and motives suggests that his inquiry is intellectually and ethically superior to theirs. Ultimately, then, Herodotus's exploration of regal investigation helps both to define and to lend authority to the historiê that he undertakes in the Histories. (shrink)