This paper traces the development of enactive concepts of value and normativity from their roots in the canonical work of Varela et al. through more recent works of Ezequiel Di Paolo and others. It aims to show the central importance of these concepts for enactive theory while exposing a potentially troublesome ambiguity in their definition. Most definitions of enactive normativity are purely proscriptive, but it seems that enactive theories of cognitive agency and experience demand something more. On the other hand, (...) it is not clear that anything other than proscriptive normativity can be made compatible with the enactive tenet of autonomy and the rejection of representations. (shrink)

One of the many senses of the word spirituality—surely one of the vaguest words in the modern English language—is that of a special quality of life, a sublime fulfillment that somehow transcends the vicissitudes of fortune. According to this sense, spiritual people experience life as having such abundance of value or meaning that they can endure great hardship and tragedy without coming to despair. This abiding fullness and the equanimity it provides are perhaps the greatest prize of the spiritual life.Spiritual (...) fulfillment was once claimed as the special reward of religion, but no longer. In late modernity "spiritual but not religious" has become a commonplace self-description, and presumably this concept of .. (shrink)

I imagine that many readers of AJTP will find it hard to get excited about a new collection of essays about consciousness from the process perspective, no matter how good it is purported to be, because they are bored with the so-called "problem of consciousness" and uninterested in playing the role of the choir for what looks like a lot of old-fashioned Whiteheadian preaching. But in fact this book was conceived with the intention to do much more than preach to (...) the choir: it aims to engage a wider audience and to make new contributions to the process perspective. That it succeeds so well in achieving these two aims, often within the same essay, is what makes this book so exceptionally good and deserving of the .. (shrink)

in the context of neville’s other work, the first thing to say about this book is that its main topic, the metaphysics of goodness, carries forward one of the major themes of his entire philosophical corpus, starting with his first article “Man’s Ends,” published in 1962. Together with his ontological theory of creation ex nihilo, Neville’s axiological-relational metaphysics—his metaphysics of harmony—is what most distinguishes his thought and unifies it as a system. Moreover, for Neville, axiology and ontology are integrally related (...) topics. My focus here, however, will be on his axiology.Within the context of modern thought, Neville’s insistence on the reality of goodness is enough to mark him as an outlier, but... (shrink)

This essay develops a Confucian theory of shame within a framework of related concepts, including concepts of value, personhood, and human flourishing. It proposes that all of these concepts should be understood in terms of a metaphysical concept of harmony. Moreover, it argues that this concept of harmony entails a relational experience of value, such that the experience of self-value and ‘other value’ are deeply intertwined. An important implication of this theory is that the harmonic realization of value that is (...) required for human flourishing necessarily involves heightened sensitivity to shame. The goal of this essay is not only to describe Confucian shame but also to view the human experience of shame through a distinctly Confucian lens. Accordingly, it offers a Confucian take on the pathology of shame, as well as recent debates concerning the role of shame in modern society. (shrink)

When examined closely, our experience of affect presents a special challenge: it seems that there is no common quality that marks the pleasantness of conscious states and feelings. The implications of this finding have been debated by philosophers and psychologists for more than a century, and yet the peculiar phenomenology of affect is rarely discussed within consciousness studies. The purpose of this article is to call attention to the problem of affect and to examine the most likely reasons for its (...) neglect. These include the assumption that affect is a special quality, the externalist view of affect as an intentional attitude and, perhaps most importantly, the assumption that pleasures and pains can be circumscribed as a special class of feelings. If none of these reasons hold up to scrutiny, facing up to the problem of affect may require that we revise our concept of consciousness. (shrink)

In this book, Robert Neville brings together twenty essays that articulate and support his understanding of religion as "human engagement of ultimacy". Most of the essays were originally prepared during the same period in which he wrote his three-volume Philosophical Theology ; accordingly, many of the early chapters can serve as introductions to the latter work. In later chapters, Neville sharpens his view of religion in conversation with various friendly rivals, including philosophical theologians and pragmatists. Most of the essays were (...) originally prepared as talks for diverse audiences; as a result... (shrink)

This book has two main tasks: (1) to call attention to the special challenges presented by our experience of affect—all varieties of pleasure and pain—and (2) to show how these challenges can be overcome by an “enrichment approach” that understands affect as the enrichment or deterioration of conscious activity as a whole. This “enrichment approach” draws from Alfred North Whitehead as well as the pragmatists John Dewey and William James, all of whom thought of affect as a fundamental aspect of (...) experience rather than a special class of feelings. It also draws from recent scientific research that suggests that the dynamic repertoire of consciousness can change, effectively expanding and contracting our capacity to feel. Weaving these perspectives together, the book develops a theory that accounts for the peculiar phenomenology of affect and sheds new light on a diverse range of experiences, from everyday pleasures and pains to the special satisfactions of the arts and religious festivity. At the same time, it presents a fresh and distinctively affect-centered perspective on the nature of consciousness. (shrink)

To understand the evolution of imaginative culture, we need to understand its unique affective power. The purpose of this article is to explain our enjoyment of imaginative culture from the standpoint of a distinctive theoretical approach to understanding affect in terms of the dynamic and energetic features of consciousness. This approach builds upon John Dewey’s view of enjoyment as the enrichment of experience, adding perspectives from studies of the dynamics of consciousness and from ecological psychology. Its main thesis is that (...) positive affect is determined by the causal enrichment of experience, which is defined as the differentiated-ness of conscious states. This approach suggests that the affective power of imaginative culture lies in the way it affords experiences of enriched meaning, as exemplified by our enjoyment of highly nuanced emotion in music. (shrink)

William Alston’s Theory of Appearing has attracted considerable attention in recent years, both for its elegant interpretation of direct realism in light of the presentational character of perceptual experience and for its central role in his defense of the justificatory force of Christian mystical experiences. There are different ways to account for presentational character, however, and in this article we argue that a superior interpretation of direct realism can be given by a theory of perception as dynamic engagement. The conditions (...) for dynamic engagement are such that there can be no absolute discontinuity between individual perceptual experiences and more public forms of inquiry, and this requirement has radical consequences for the prima facie justificatory force of religious experience. (shrink)

Writing in 1992, biologist E. O. Wilson prophesied, "Here is the means to end the great extinction spasm. The next century will, I believe, be the era of restoration in ecology." 2 This statement has become the rallying cry for advocates of ecological restoration, an emerging international environmental movement focused on the renewal of damaged or destroyed ecosystems. 3 The benefits promised by ecological restoration are manifold. In addition to its primary ecological goals of replenished biodiversity and improved ecosystem functioning, (...) restoration fosters intimate, participatory kinds of community between practitioners and their local environments. 4 Moreover, the idea that we can .. (shrink)

Steve Odin’s latest book is an outstanding example of comparative philosophy in a sympathetic mode: through meticulous exposition of the consonant features of two seemingly disparate perspectives—the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and the “religio-aesthetic” tradition of Japanese Buddhist philosophy and the arts—Odin builds a powerful argument of deep sympathetic resonance. At the same time, Odin makes a compelling case for understanding Whitehead’s philosophical system through his aesthetics and, in this light, presents Whitehead’s philosophy as a leading exemplar of a (...) distinctive strand of aesthetically oriented American philosophy. The cumulative result is the articulation of an aesthetically oriented... (shrink)

For mainstream analytic philosophy of mind, the explanatory gap between first- and third-person accounts of consciousness derives from the inaccessibility of special, “experiential” properties of conscious minds. Within this framework, panpsychism is simply the claim that these special properties are everywhere. In contrast, process panpsychism understands the explanatory gap in terms of the particularity of feeling. While the particularity of feeling cannot be captured by third-person accounts, for this very reason it is amenable to understanding consciousness as an evolutionary process. (...) Thus it may turn out that the elusiveness of feeling is essential to its functionality. (shrink)

For mainstream analytic philosophy of mind, the explanatory gap between first- and third-person accounts of consciousness derives from the inaccessibilityof special, “experiential” properties of conscious minds. Within this framework, panpsychism is simply the claim that these special properties are everywhere. In contrast, process panpsychism understands the explanatory gap in terms of the particularity of feeling. While the particularity of feeling cannot be captured by third-person accounts, for this very reason it is amenable to understanding consciousness as an evolutionary process. Thus (...) it may turn out that the elusiveness of feeling is essential to its functionality. (shrink)

The question of what makes a ‘law’ distinct from other kinds of rules and social norms – often called the project of ‘conceptual jurisprudence’ – gives rise to a classic debate in modern legal theory. The debate has historically centred on the competing Western views of (i) natural law theory and (ii) legal positivism. Meanwhile, the ancient Chinese school of thought known as ‘Legalism’ (法家) has remained an under-explored branch of Eastern philosophy, despite its many insights into the nature of (...) government and legal systems. This paper argues that Legalism, when interpreted as a system of conceptual jurisprudence, offers a genuine alternative to both of the dominant Western theories. It achieves this by invoking normative reasoning to conceptually distinguish ‘laws’ from other sorts of rules at the most fundamental level of analysis, but also by doing so without any necessary reference to notions of morality. This unique characteristic of Legalism is introduced in this paper as ‘form prudentialism’. (shrink)

This paper addresses and proposes to resolve a longstanding problem in the philosophy of physics: whether and in what sense Albert Einstein’s Chasing the Light thought experiment was significant in the development of the theory of special relativity. Although Einstein granted this thought experiment pride of place in his 1949 Autobiographical Notes, philosophers and physicists continue to debate about what, if anything, the experiment establishes. I claim that we ought to think of Chasing the Light as Einstein’s first attempt to (...) problematize the very idea of the electromagnetic ether frame, and that it thereby contributed to his eventual adoption of one of special relativity’s two foundational axioms: the “light postulate”. This interpretation requires the assumption that Einstein had presupposed special relativity’s other axiom, the “principle of relativity”, when initially considering Chasing the Light. This argument is novel insofar as it provides evidence that such a presupposition by Einstein is both conceptually and historically plausible. Moreover, this paper directly challenges John D. Norton’s compelling claim that Chasing the Light is best understood as a refutation of emission theories of light propagation; while both interpretations of the experiment are conceptually coherent, I argue that the interpretation found in this paper is supported more straightforwardly by historical evidence. (shrink)

In their effort to emphasize the positive role of nature in our lives, environmental thinkers have tended to downplay or even to ignore the negative aspects of our experience with nature and, even when acknowledging them, have had little to offer by way of psychologically and spiritually productive ways of dealing with them. The idea that the experience of value begins with the experience of existential shame—arising from awareness of the limitations that define the self—needs to be explored. The primary (...) purpose of the “technologies of the imagination”—myth, symbol, ritual and the arts—is to provide a passage through this shame to the experience of values such as community, meaning, beauty, and the sacred and, through these experiences, to inscribe them into conscience. The implications of this idea for environmental thinking and practice can be explored in two areas involving strong engagement with nature: ecological restoration and the production and eating of food. An environmentalism that fails to provide productive ways of dealing with existential shame may well prove inadequate to the task of providing means for achieving a healthy, sustain­able relationship between humans and the rest of nature. (shrink)

In the middle of the twentieth century, Wittgenstein warned that “the method of reducing the explanation of natural phenomena to the smallest possible number of primitive natural laws…leads…into complete darkness” (1958, p. 18). At the time, few philosophers and even fewer scientists were prepared to heed his warning. A half-century later, however, the reductive method of science—the method famously defined by Descartes, brilliantly exemplified by Newtonian physics, and long upheld as the gold standard of scientific explanation—seems to have finally lost (...) its luster. While reduction is still widely defended, in the last decades alternative views have gained credibility, to the extent that a “non-reductive science” is no longer dismissed as an oxymoron. (shrink)

We support the development of non-reductive cognitive science and the naturalization of phenomenology for this purpose, and we agree that the ‘relational turn’ defended by Gallagher is a necessary step in this direction. However, we believe that certain aspects of his relational concept of nature need clarification. In particular, Gallagher does not say whether or how teleology, affect, and other value-related properties of life and mind can be naturalized within this framework. In this paper, we argue that (1) given the (...) phenomenological standards recognized by Gallagher, his commitment to a naturalized phenomenology should entail a commitment to a naturalized concept of value; and (2) the kind of ‘relational nature’ described by Gallagher in his paper is insufficient for this purpose. (shrink)

Do philosophic views affect job performance? The authors found that possessing a belief in free will predicted better career attitudes and actual job performance. The effect of free will beliefs on job performance indicators were over and above well-established predictors such as conscientiousness, locus of control, and Protestant work ethic. In Study 1, stronger belief in free will corresponded to more positive attitudes about expected career success. In Study 2, job performance was evaluated objectively and independently by a supervisor. Results (...) indicated that employees who espoused free will beliefs were given better work performance evaluations than those who disbelieve in free will, presumably because belief in free will facilitates exerting control over one’s actions. (shrink)

We examine the extent to which host country income inequality influences multinational enterprises’ (MNE) expansion strategy for foreign production investment, depending on their specific strategic objectives. Applying a transaction cost framework, we predict that national income inequality has an inverted U-shaped relationship with foreign production investment. As inequality increases, MNEs accrue lower transaction costs arising from interactions with various local actors, leading to higher probability of investment. As income inequality increases further, its effect on location attractiveness will become negative, as (...) its attraction effect is increasingly offset by additional monitoring, bargaining, and security costs owing to the more fractious nature of high inequality societies. In addition, we suggest that the impact of income inequality is contingent on investment objectives: The inverted U-shaped relationship is stronger for efficiency-seeking investment but weaker for market-seeking and competence-enhancing investments. We find substantial support for our hypotheses through an analysis of 27 years (1986-2012) of data on Japanese MNEs’ overseas production entries. (shrink)

Background: The factors influencing parents’ willingness to enroll their children in biobanks are poorly understood. This study sought to assess parents’ willingness to enroll their children, and their perceived benefits, concerns, and information needs under different consent and data-sharing scenarios, and to identify factors associated with willingness. Methods: This large, experimental survey of patients at the 11 eMERGE Network sites used a disproportionate stratified sampling scheme to enrich the sample with historically underrepresented groups. Participants were randomized to receive one of (...) three consent and data-sharing scenarios. Results: In total, 90,000 surveys were mailed and 13,000 individuals responded (15.8% response rate). 5737 respondents were parents of minor children. Overall, 55% (95% confidence interval 50–59%) of parents were willing to enroll their youngest minor child in a hypothetical biobank; willingness did not differ between consent and data-sharing scenarios. Lower educational attainment, higher religiosity, lower trust, worries about privacy, and attitudes about benefits, concerns, and information needs were independently associated with less willingness to allow their child to participate. Of parents who were willing to participate themselves, 25% were not willing to allow their child to participate. Being willing to participate but not willing to allow one’s child to participate was independently associated with multiple factors, including race, lower educational attainment, lower annual household income, public health care insurance, and higher religiosity. Conclusions: Fifty-five percent of parents were willing to allow their youngest minor child to participate in a hypothetical biobank. Building trust, protecting privacy, and addressing attitudes may increase enrollment and diversity in pediatric biobanks. (shrink)

Four studies measured or manipulated beliefs in free will to illuminate how such beliefs are linked to other aspects of personality. Study 1 showed that stronger belief in free will was correlated with more gratitude, greater life satisfaction, lower levels of perceived life stress, a greater sense of self-efficacy, greater perceived meaning in life, higher commitment in relationships, and more willingness to forgive relationship partners. Study 2 showed that the belief in free will was a stronger predictor of life satisfaction, (...) meaning in life, gratitude, and self-efficacy than either locus of control or implicit person theory. Study 3 showed that experimentally manipulating disbelief in free will caused a reduction in the perceived meaningfulness of life. Study 4 found that inducing a stronger belief in free will caused people to set more meaningful goals for themselves. The possible concern that believers in free will simply claim all manner of positive traits was contradicted by predicted null finding.. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

The "two-envelopes" problem has stimulated much discussion on probabilistic reasoning, but relatively little experimentation. The problem specifies two identical envelopes, one of which contains twice as much money as the other. You are given one of the envelopes and the option of keeping it or trading for the other envelope. Variables of interest include the possible amounts of money involved, what is known about the process by which the amounts of money were assigned to the envelopes, and whether you are (...) allowed to know how much money is in the envelope in hand before deciding whether to keep or trade. In an earlier study, Butler and Nickerson found that when participants were allowed to know how much was in the envelope in hand, they generally elected to trade if that amount was small relative to the range of possibilities and to keep otherwise. The present experiments showed that this propensity was independent of the amount of money in the envelopes. Participants made decisions with a strong bias for avoiding the risk of losing by trading, particularly when the amount in hand was known and large relative to the range of possible amounts, regardless of the absolute value of the gamble. The results illustrate the dependence of thinking on the context in which it occurs, and demonstrate a tendency to treat quantities that are large or small relative to a particular context in which they are encountered as though they were large or small in a more general sense. (shrink)

Kierkegaard has no comprehensive or systematic aesthetics of his own. Despite this, his work contains numerous and abundant references to the aesthetics of his time; namely, the Hegelian inspired aesthetics of Johan Ludvig Heiberg. As a one‐time adherent of Heiberg, Kierkegaard was thoroughly steeped in Heiberg's philosophy of art, and often merely applies such aesthetics to his selected objects of interest, echoing the philosophy of art of his day. There are, however, other instances where Kierkegaard carries out a sometimes overt (...) and sometimes covert critique of Heibergian aesthetics, especially after Either/Or, challenging his predecessor's views and the dominant aesthetics of the day. (shrink)

There is growing interest in examining dark personality traits, to better explain malevolent and self-serving behaviour patterns commonly observed in clinical and non-clinical settings. Recently, taxonomies of dark personalities have been developed, along with psychometric tools to measure and delineate between traits including psychopathy, Machiavellianism and narcissism. The extent to which these constructs are distinct or overlapping remains controversial. Psychophysiological research can improve understanding of biological mechanisms contributing to personality that may help to evaluate taxonomies. This study investigated diurnal variations (...) in salivary cortisol (on waking, cortisol awakening response, and at bedtime, over two days) and their relationship to personality traits (Short Dark Triad Scale and IPIP Mini), psychopathology (Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale; DASS) and quality of life (WHOQOL-BREF) in a non-clinical sample (N=45, 26 females, 19 males, 18-59 years). Dark personality traits correlated with low bedtime cortisol, reduced sleep, depression and poorer quality of life. Hierarchical linear regressions analyses indicated that bedtime cortisol levels significantly accounted for variance in Psychopathy (F(1,39)=5.55, p=.02, R=.52, B=-1.81, 95% CI [-3.37-(-.26)], β=-.33, sr2=.10) and reduced sleep uniquely accounted for variance Machiavellianism (F(2,40)=5.99, p=.01, R=.48, B=1.01, 95% CI [.16-2.02], β=.34, sr2=.11). These data provide preliminary evidence that supports the cortisol hypoarousal hypothesis of Psychopathy and has identified a link between Machiavellianism, sleep-wake cycles, and chronotype. The hypoarousal hypothesis of Psychopathy contends that the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis is unresponsive to the stress of social engagement. Machiavellianism was predicted by longer days with evidence for an evening chronotype. These findings indicated that the Dark Triad traits have different underlying biological mechanisms that require further exploration. (shrink)

MARSHA F. ENRIGHT responds to Larry Sechrest's article "Rand, Anarchy, and Taxes" . She examines the social forces that logically lead to the development of government, and the reasons for geographical demarcations of governments.

We study for each computably bounded $\Pi ^0_1$ class P the set of degrees of c.e. paths in P. We show, amongst other results, that for every c.e. degree a there is a perfect $\Pi ^0_1$ class where all c.e. members have degree a. We also show that every $\Pi ^0_1$ set of c.e. indices is realized in some perfect $\Pi ^0_1$ class, and classify the sets of c.e. degrees which can be realized in some $\Pi ^0_1$ class as exactly (...) those with a computable representation. (shrink)

Local food systems can have economic and social benefits by providing income for producers and improving community connections. Ongoing global climate change and the acute COVID-19 pandemic crisis have shown the importance of building equity and resilience in local food systems. We interviewed ten stakeholders from organizations and institutions in a U.S. midwestern city exploring views on past, current, and future conditions to address the following two objectives: 1) Assess how local food system equity and resilience were impacted by the (...) COVID-19 pandemic, and 2) Examine how policy and behavior changes could support greater equity and resilience within urban local food systems. We used the Community Capitals Framework to organize interviewees’ responses for qualitative analyses of equity and resilience. Four types of community capital were emphasized by stakeholders: cultural and social, natural, and political capital. Participants stated that the local food system in this city is small; more weaknesses in food access, land access, and governance were described than were strengths in both pre- and post-pandemic conditions. Stakeholder responses also reflected lack of equity and resilience in the local food system, which was most pronounced for cultural and social, natural and political capitals. However, local producers’ resilience during the pandemic, which we categorized as human capital, was a notable strength. An improved future food system could incorporate changes in infrastructure (e.g., food processing), markets (e.g., values-based markets) and cultural values (e.g., valuing local food through connections between local producers and consumers). These insights could inform policy and enhance community initiatives and behavior changes to build more equitable and resilient local food systems in urban areas throughout the U.S. Midwest. (shrink)

During the early 19th century, a peculiarly systematic way of organizing books emerged in Germany. This systematization, which purported to be a rational organization of subject matter, was an outgrowth of the philosophy of Hegel. This article attempts to outline Hegel's organizational practice. It argues that Hegel's encyclopedia was a reaction against the Enlightenment encyclopedia, and that it attempted to restore the systematic mindset of pre-modern reference books. Yet it did this, not in a straightforward fashion, but by developing a (...) method for organizing material that both stresses the interconnectedness of knowledge and promises to be highly scalable. In its attempt to trace the Hegelian organizational method, this article revisits and calls attention to a forgotten work in Hegel scholarship by Michael John Petry, who was the first writer to seriously stress the importance of classification in Hegel's work. This article is an attempt to demonstrate that Hegelianism and information organization can be brought into fruitful and mutually beneficial dialogue. (shrink)