Sacred values differ from material or instrumental values in that they incorporate moral beliefs that drive action in ways dissociated from prospects for success. Across the world, people believe that devotion to essential or core values – such as the welfare of their family and country, or their commitment to religion, honor, and justice – are, or ought to be, absolute and inviolable. Counterintuitively, understanding an opponent's sacred values, we believe, offers surprising opportunities for breakthroughs to peace. Because of the (...) emotional unwillingness of those in conflict situations to negotiate sacred values, conventional wisdom suggests that negotiators should either leave sacred values for last in political negotiations or try to bypass them with sufficient material incentives. Our empirical findings and historical analysis suggest that conventional wisdom is wrong. In fact, offering to provide material benefits in exchange for giving up a sacred value actually makes settlement more difficult because people see the offering as an insult rather than a compromise. But we also found that making symbolic concessions of no apparent material benefit might open the way to resolving seemingly irresolvable conflicts. We offer suggestions for how negotiators can reframe their position by demonstrating respect, and/or by apologizing for what they sincerely regret. We also offer suggestions for how to overcome sacred barriers by refining sacred values to exclude outmoded claims, exploiting the inevitable ambiguity of sacred values, shifting the context, provisionally prioritizing values, and reframing responsibility. (shrink)

Resolution of quarrels arising from conflicting sacred values, as in the Middle East, may require concessions that acknowledge the opposition's core concerns.

NOT all groups that the United States government classifies as terrorist organizations are equally bad or dangerous, and not all information conveyed to them that is based on political, academic or scientific expertise risks harming our national security. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court, which last week upheld a law banning the provision of “material support” to foreign terrorist groups, doesn't seem to consider those facts relevant.... The two of us are social scientists who study and interact with violent groups in order (...) to find ways out of intractable conflicts. In the course of this work and in our discussions with decision makers in the Middle East and elsewhere we have seen how informal meetings and exchanges of knowledge have borne fruit. It's not that religious, academic or scientific credentials automatically convey trust, but when combined with a personal commitment to peace, they often carry weight beyond mere opinion or desire.... In our own work on groups categorized as terrorist organizations, we have detected significant differences in their attitudes and actions. For example, in our recent interactions with the leader of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad Ramadan Shallah, we were faced with an adamant refusal to ever recognize Israel or move toward a two-state solution. Yet when we talked to Khaled Meshal, the leader of Hamas, he said that his movement could imagine a two-state “peace”. In our time with Mr. Meshal's group, we were also able to confirm something that Saudi and Israeli intelligence officers had told us: Hamas has fought to keep Al Qaeda out of its field of influence, and has no demonstrated interest in global jihad. Whether or not the differences among Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Hamas and other violent groups are fundamental, rather than temporary or tactical, is something only further exploration will reveal. But to assume that it is invariably wrong to engage any of these groups is a grave mistake.... (shrink)

A Scientific Approach The facts detailed in this briefing are the results of scientific exploration of terror networks and sacred values and their association to political violence. The research is sponsored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Science Foundation.

Every educated person in the Middle Ages learned logic, which was then always some version of the theory of the syllogism. But until the rise of the universities in the thirteenth century no scholar in Christendom had written a comprehensive commentary on the work of Aristotle's that contains that theory, namely the Prior Analytics. Robert Kilwardby was an English scholar who lectured on logic and grammar at the University of Paris in the 1230s. His lectures earned him widespread fame in (...) Europe. Throughout the thirteenth century and up to the sixteenth,Kilwardby's lectures on Aristotle's Prior Analytics were considered to contain the authoritative exposition of Aristotle's syllogistic logic. They were published at Venice in 1499. (shrink)

Every educated person in the Middle Ages learned logic, which was then always some version of the theory of the syllogism. But until the rise of the universities in the thirteenth century no scholar in Christendom had written a comprehensive commentary on the work of Aristotle's that contains that theory, namely the Prior Analytics. Robert Kilwardby was an English scholar who lectured on logic and grammar at the University of Paris in the 1230s. His lectures earned him widespread fame in (...) Europe. Throughout the thirteenth century and up to the sixteenth,Kilwardby's lectures on Aristotle's Prior Analytics were considered to contain the authoritative exposition of Aristotle's syllogistic logic. They were published at Venice in 1499. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence is becoming part of our everyday experience and is expected to be ever more integrated into ordinary life for many years to come. Thus, it is important for those in product development, research, and public policy to understand how the public’s perception of AI is shaped. In this study, we conducted focus groups and an online survey to determine the knowledge of AI held by the American public, and to judge whether entertainment media is a major influence on (...) how Americans perceive AI. What we found is that the American public’s knowledge of AI is patchy: some have a good understanding of what is and what is not AI, but many do not. When it came to understanding what AI can do, most respondents believe that AI could “replace human jobs” but few thought that it could “feel emotion.” Most respondents were optimistic about the future and impact of AI, though about one third were not sure. Most respondents also did not think they could develop an emotional bond with or be comfortable being provided care by an AI. Regarding the influence of entertainment media on perceptions of AI, we found a significant relationship between people’s beliefs about AI in entertainment media and their beliefs about AI in reality. Those who believe AI is realistically depicted in entertainment media were more likely to see AIs as potential emotional partners or apocalyptic robots than to imagine AIs taking over jobs or operating as surveillance tools. (shrink)

Creativity pervades human life. It is the mark of individuality, the vehicle of self-expression, and the engine of progress in every human endeavor. It also raises a wealth of neglected and yet evocative philosophical questions: What is the role of consciousness in the creative process? How does the audience for a work for art influence its creation? How can creativity emerge through childhood pretending? Do great works of literature give us insight into human nature? Can a computer program really be (...) creative? How do we define creativity in the first place? Is it a virtue? What is the difference between creativity in science and art? Can creativity be taught? The new essays that comprise The Philosophy of Creativity take up these and other key questions and, in doing so, illustrate the value of interdisciplinary exchange. Written by leading philosophers and psychologists involved in studying creativity, the essays integrate philosophical insights with empirical research. CONTENTS I. Introduction Introducing The Philosophy of Creativity Elliot Samuel Paul and Scott Barry Kaufman II. The Concept of Creativity 1. An Experiential Account of Creativity Bence Nanay III. Aesthetics & Philosophy of Art 2. Creativity and Insight Gregory Currie 3. The Creative Audience: Some Ways in which Readers, Viewers and/or Listeners Use their Imaginations to Engage Fictional Artworks Noël Carroll 4. The Products of Musical Creativity Christopher Peacocke IV. Ethics & Value Theory 5. Performing Oneself Owen Flanagan 6. Creativity as a Virtue of Character Matthew Kieran V. Philosophy of Mind & Cognitive Science 7. Creativity and Not So Dumb Luck Simon Blackburn 8. The Role of Imagination in Creativity Dustin Stokes 9. Creativity, Consciousness, and Free Will: Evidence from Psychology Experiments Roy F. Baumeister, Brandon J. Schmeichel, and C. Nathan DeWall 10. The Origins of Creativity Elizabeth Picciuto and Peter Carruthers 11. Creativity and Artificial Intelligence: a Contradiction in Terms? Margaret Boden VI. Philosophy of Science 12. Hierarchies of Creative Domains: Disciplinary Constraints on Blind-Variation and Selective-Retention Dean Keith Simonton VII. Philosophy of Education (& Education of Philosophy) 13. Educating for Creativity Berys Gaut 14. Philosophical Heuristics Alan Hájek. (shrink)

Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is central to modern biology, but is resisted by many people. This paper discusses the major psychological obstacles to accepting Darwin’s theory. Cognitive obstacles to adopting evolution by natural selection include conceptual difficulties, methodological issues, and coherence problems that derive from the intuitiveness of alternative theories. The main emotional obstacles to accepting evolution are its apparent conflict with valued beliefs about God, souls, and morality. We draw on the philosophy of science and on (...) a psychological theory of cognitive and emotional belief revision to make suggestions about what can be done to improve acceptance of Darwinian ideas. (shrink)

The challenge of pursuing sustainability in agriculture is often viewed as mainly or wholly technical in nature, requiring the reform of farming methods and the development and adoption of alternative technologies. Likewise, the purpose of sustainability is frequently cast in utilitarian terms, as a means of protecting a valuable resource (i.e., soil) and of satisfying market demands for healthy, tasty food. Paul B. Thompson has argued that the embrace of these views by many in the consumer/environmental movement enables easy (...) co-optation by agribusiness. It also reflects a critical weakness in this movement: a lack of commitment to philosophical principles that depart from the utilitarian premises of the industrial model of agriculture. This paper draws on the writings of Thomas Berry and Liberty Hyde Bailey to identify the philosophical principles of what we call planetary agrarianism. From the perspective of planetary agrarianism, the pursuit of sustainability is a broad and challenging moral, educational, and political task. Berry helps us see that it is fundamentally a project of worldview transition, which requires a new cultural narrative that must rival, in form and appeal, the mythic power of the utilitarian industrial vision. Liberty Hyde Bailey, author of The Holy Earth (1915) and a leader in the land-grant education and nature-study movements, took up the project of worldview transition in his life work. While in some ways dated and flawed, Bailey’s writings are a valuable source of guidance for developing and pursuing a viable philosophy of agriculture for the 21st century. (shrink)

This collects some of the remarks made at the 2016 Pacific APA Memorial session for Patrick Suppes and Jaakko Hintikka. The full list of speakers on behalf of these two philosophers: Dagfinn Follesdal; Dana Scott; Nancy Cartwright; Paul Humphreys; Juliet Floyd; Gabriel Sandu; John Symons.

Unique in all of literature, the Confessions combines frank and profound psychological insight into Augustine's formative years along with sophisticated and beguiling reflections on some of the most important issues in philosophy and theology. The essays contained in this volume, by some of the most distinguished recent and contemporary thinkers in the field, insightfully explore Augustinian themes not only with an eye to historical accuracy but also to gauge the philosophical acumen of Augustine's reflections.

Challenging recent work that contends that seventeenth-century English discourses privilege the notion of a self-enclosed, self-sufficient individual, The Power of the Passive Self in English Literature recovers a counter-tradition that imagines selves as more passively prompted than actively choosing. This tradition - which Scott Paul Gordon locates in seventeenth-century religious discourse, in early eighteenth-century moral philosophy, in mid eighteenth-century acting theory, and in the emergent novel - resists autonomy and defers agency from the individual to an external 'prompter'. (...) Gordon argues that the trope of passivity aims to guarantee a disinterested self in a culture that was increasingly convinced that every deliberate action involves calculating one's own interest. Gordon traces the origins of such ideas from their roots in the non-conformist religious tradition to their flowering in one of the central texts of eighteenth-century literature, Samuel Richardson's Clarissa. (shrink)

_John Dewey and Continental Philosophy_ provides a rich sampling of exchanges that could have taken place long ago between the traditions of American pragmatism and continental philosophy had the lines of communication been more open between Dewey and his European contemporaries. Since they were not, Paul Fairfield and thirteen of his colleagues seek to remedy the situation by bringing the philosophy of Dewey into conversation with several currents in continental philosophical thought, from post-Kantian idealism and the work of Friedrich (...) Nietzsche to twentieth-century phenomenology, hermeneutics, and poststructuralism. This unique volume includes discussions comparing and contrasting Dewey with the German philosophers G. W. F. Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Hans-Georg Gadamer on such topics as phenomenology, naturalism, organicism, contextualism, and poetry. Others investigate a series of connections between Dewey and contemporary French philosophy, including the notions of subjectivity, education, and the critique of modernity in Michel Foucault; language and politics in Jacques Derrida; and the concept of experience in Gilles Deleuze. Also discussed is the question of whether we can identify traces of _Bildung_ in Dewey’s writings on education, and pragmatism’s complex relation to twentieth-century phenomenology and hermeneutics, including the problematic question of whether Heidegger was a pragmatist in any meaningful sense. Presented in intriguing pairings, these thirteen essays offer different approaches to the material that will leave readers with much to deliberate. _ John Dewey and Continental Philosophy_ demonstrates some of the many connections and opportunities for cross-traditional thinking that have long existed between Dewey and continental thought, but have been under-explored. The intersection presented here between Dewey’s pragmatism and the European traditions makes a significant contribution to continental and American philosophy and will spur new and important developments in the American philosophical debate. (shrink)

The suspension of major sporting competitions due to the global COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial negative impact on the sporting industry. As such, a successful and sustainable return to sport will require extensive modifications to the current operations of sporting organizations. In this article we argue that methods from the realm of sociotechnical systems theory are highly suited for this purpose. The aim of the study was to use such methods to develop a model of an Australian Football League club’s (...) football department. The intention was to identify potential modifications to the club’s operations to support a return to competition following the COVID-19 crisis. Subject Matter Experts from an AFL club participated in three online workshops to develop Work Domain Analysis and Social Organization and Cooperation Analysis models. The results demonstrated the inherent complexity of an AFL football department via numerous interacting values, functions and processes influencing the goals of the system. Conflicts within the system were captured via the modeling and included pursing goals that may not fully reflect the state of the system, a lack of formal assessment of core values, overlapping functions and objects, and an overemphasis on specialized roles. The current analysis has highlighted potential areas for modification in the football department, and sports performance departments in general. (shrink)

Lebensphilosophie, central to nineteenth-century philosophical thought, is concerned with the meaning, value and purpose of life. In this much-needed study, historical lebensphilosophie is returned to the core of philosophical investigations and revealed in the contemporary ascendency of 'life' in philosophical thinking. Scholars from aesthetics, bioethics and ontology examine how the notion of life has made its way into contemporary philosophical discussions. They identify three main themes: the shift toward biological and technological views of life, altering Dilthey and Nietzsche's emphasis on (...) historical life over biological life; the relationship between biopolitics and political liberalism and the re-emergence of the idea of life - so important for the traditional life-philosophers - in recent discussions about care of the self, existential gratitude skepticism and the emotions. Anticipating new directions of philosophical thinking, this study restores a vital school of thought to crucial discussions about the dangers of contemporary politics and the threat of new technologies. (shrink)

This is the opening chapter to The Philosophy of Creativity: New Essays. It argues that since creativity is such a significant aspect of the human experience, and since it raises a wealth of philosophical questions, it deserves much more attention than it currently receives in philosophy. It also argues for the fruitfulness of interdisciplinary exchange, integrating philosophical insights with research in experimental psychology. Providing an overview of the field and of the subsequent essays in the volume, this chapter surveys issues (...) such as the definition of creativity, the role of consciousness in the creative process, the role of the audience in the creation of art, the emergence of creativity through childhood pretense, whether great works of literature give us insight into human nature, whether a computer program can really be creative, whether creativity is a virtue, the difference between creativity in science and art, and whether creativity can be taught—both in general and within philosophy itself. (shrink)

Issues of interest, identity and values intertwine in environmental conflicts, creating challenges that cannot generally be overcome using rationalities grounded in generalised argumentation and abstraction. To address the growing need to engage interests and identities along with plural values in the conservation of biodiversity and ecological systems, we introduce the concept of ‘appropriateness of actions’ and ground it in a relational understanding of environmental ethics. A determination of appropriateness for actions comes from combining outputs from value elicitation with those of (...) interest and identity negotiation in ways that are salient to specific people and their relationships to specific places. Drawing on the Blue Mountain Forest Partnership in the Pacific Northwest, we propose factors of success for supporting appropriate actions: 1) understanding context and identifying key stakeholders; 2) surfacing a diversity of interests and building system-level trust; 3) building empathy for different identities grounded in specific places; 4) eliciting diverse values and seeking to understand their links to worldviews and knowledge systems and; 5) seeking out appropriate actions. (shrink)

The Greeks invented the words “city,” “democracy,” “people,” “oligarchy,” “liberty,” “citizen.” It is therefore tempting to suppose that they invented the eternal truth of politics, or of our politics, with only one exception: slavery is the major difference between their democracy and democracy as such. For there must exist an eternal politics about which it is possible to philosophize instead of simply writing history. Therein, across the ages, could be found the central essence of politics; despite their diversity, political regimes (...) would have a functional analogy to one another which could be represented in a variety of ways: establishing justice, making men live in peace with one another, defending the group, exercising a domination of the master class over the forces of production. (shrink)

Previous research indicates that Euro-American women are more upset by imagining their male partners committing homosexual infidelities than heterosexual ones. The present studies sought to replicate these findings and extend them to two non-Western cultures wherein masculine men frequently engage in sexual interactions with feminine third-gender males. Across six studies in three cultural locales, women were asked to rate their degree of upset when imagining that their partner committed infidelity that was heterosexual in nature, as well as infidelity that was (...) homosexual. In two Canadian undergraduate samples, women reported greater upset at imagining partner infidelity with a female, whereas a community sample of middle-aged women reported equal upset across infidelity types. Samoan women reported substantially less upset at the thought of partner infidelity with a third-gender male than with a female. Istmo Zapotec women reported equal upset toward infidelity with a female or a third-gender male, whereas a second Zapotec sample reported slightly greater upset at the thought of infidelity with a muxe. Results illustrate how cultural contexts moderate the degree to which same-sex infidelity scenarios are upsetting to women. (shrink)

Previous research has found that sex differences in occupational preferences are both substantial and cross-culturally universal. Androphilic males tend to display “gender-shifted” occupational preferences, with relatively female-typical interests. Past research has overwhelmingly relied on Western samples; this article offers new insights from a non-Western setting. Known locally as fa’afafine, androphilic males in Samoa occupy a third-gender category. Data were collected in Samoa from 103 men, 103 women, and 103 fa’afafine regarding occupational preferences and recalled childhood gender nonconformity (CGN). A substantial (...) sex difference was observed in the occupational preferences of men and women (d = 2.04). Interestingly, women and fa’afafine did not differ in their preferences (p = 0.89), indicating a complete gender inversion of occupational preferences in the latter. Although there was no correlation between women’s CGN and masculine occupational preferences, there was a significant correlation (r = −0.62) between these variables in both men and fa’afafine. Among males (both men and fa’afafine), increased CGN was associated with preference for feminine occupations. The present research corroborates past findings and furnishes support for the conclusion that female-typical occupational preferences are a cross-culturally invariant aspect of male androphilia. (shrink)

This brief comment responds to some of the issues raised by Daniel Weinstock’s paper on the application of the republican ideal to public health. It considers the application outside of that specific context of both the problem Weinstock identifies and the solution he proposes. It queries, with reference to the different sorts of relationships of domination which exist, whether a republican approach to public health might not be better to seek to begin from private relationships of domination and to define (...) its scope with reference to such relationships. (shrink)

The present study examined women’s mate competition tactics in response to female and feminine-male rivals in two cultures in which competition against both occurs. In Samoa and the Istmo Zapotec (Southern Mexico), women not only compete with other women (intrasexually) but also compete with rival feminine males (_intersexually_) in order to access/retain the same masculine men as sexual/romantic partners. Using a mixed-method paradigm, women were asked about their experiences of intra- and intersexual mate competition, and these narratives were recorded. The (...) tactics reportedly employed by participants, and those attributed to mate competitors, were categorized according to established taxonomies of mate competition tactics, and their frequencies compared. Within-culture, the likelihood that participant women had ever experienced intra- and intersexual mate competition did not differ. Furthermore, participants reported a similar pattern of behavioral tactics whether their rival was another woman or a feminine male. These included benefit provisioning tactics during mate acquisition and cost-inflicting tactics during mate retention. Similarly, the mate competition tactics attributed to rival women and rival feminine males bore a striking resemblance, focused on enticing target men. Results highlight the mate competition tactics employed by women outside of a Euro-American context, and the way cultural factors impact mating landscapes presumed to be exclusively heterosexual. The presence of feminine males, alongside masculine men’s willingness to engage in sexual activity with them, induces women in such cultures to compete intersexually in comparable ways to intrasexual competition with rival women. (shrink)

Background: In prior reports, we described the design and initial performance of a fully implantable, bi-directional neural interface system for use in deep brain and other neurostimulation applications. Here we provide an update on the chronic, long-term neural sensing performance of the system using traditional 4-contact leads and extend those results to include directional 8-contact leads.Methods: Seven ovine subjects were implanted with deep brain stimulation leads at different nodes within the Circuit of Papez: four with unilateral leads in the anterior (...) nucleus of the thalamus and hippocampus; two with bilateral fornix leads, and one with bilateral hippocampal leads. The leads were connected to either an Activa PC+S® or Percept PC°ledR deep brain stimulation and recording device. Spontaneous local field potentials, evoked potentials, LFP response to stimulation, and electrode impedances were monitored chronically for periods of up to five years in these subjects.Results: The morphology, amplitude, and latencies of chronic hippocampal EPs evoked by thalamic stimulation remained stable over the duration of the study. Similarly, LFPs showed consistent spectral peaks with expected variation in absolute magnitude dependent upon behavioral state and other factors, but no systematic degradation of signal quality over time. Electrode impedances remained within expected ranges with little variation following an initial stabilization period. Coupled neural activity between the two nodes within the Papez circuit could be observed in synchronized recordings up to 5 years post-implant. The magnitude of passive LFP power recorded from directional electrode segments was indicative of the contacts that produced the greatest stimulation-induced changes in LFP power within the Papez network.Conclusion: The implanted device performed as designed, providing the ability to chronically stimulate and record neural activity within this network for up to 5 years of follow-up. (shrink)

Basic, key concepts of semiotic are surveyed en route to establishing signs, units of signification, as always dealing in relations. These relations are triangular and mediate. Signs span and mediate between the internality and externality of things, thing being defined as a composite of subjectivity and objectivity. Because signs are relational and mediate, identicality is postulated as the limit of the sign. Identicality is aligned with things-in-themselves, which are assigned to meta-reality, to associate semiotic and metaphysic. Mind, thought, world, and (...) reality are conceptualized in such a way as to link signs with experience. Experience is explained as being founded in relations and practices between things. These relations and practices are formulated in significations. From these signification relations experience is founded, and through experience identities are situated and selves emerge. Holding experience as being formative of and fundamental to reality, it is concluded that reality is best described as being constituted in signs and ultimately bound by significations and relations between things. (shrink)

BackgroundWe conducted a survey to identify what types of health/medical research could be exempt from research ethics reviews in Australia.MethodsWe surveyed Australian health/medical researchers and Human Research Ethics Committee members. The survey asked whether respondents had previously changed or abandoned a project anticipating difficulties obtaining ethics approval, and presented eight research scenarios, asking whether these scenarios should or should not be exempt from ethics review, and to provide comments. Qualitative data were analysed thematically; quantitative data in R.ResultsWe received 514 responses. (...) Forty-three per cent of respondents to whom the question applied, reported changing projects in anticipation of obstacles from the ethics review process; 25% reported abandoning projects for this reason. Research scenarios asking professional staff to provide views in their area of expertise were most commonly exempted from ethics review ; scenarios involving surplus samples and N-of-1 studies were most commonly required to undergo ethics review. HREC members were 26% more likely than researchers to require ethics review. Need for independent oversight, and low risk, were most frequently cited in support of decisions to require or exempt from ethics review, respectively.ConclusionsConsiderable differences exist between researchers and HREC members, about when to exempt from review the research that ultimately serves the interests of patients and the public. It is widely accepted that evaluative research should be used to reduce clinical uncertainties—the same principle should apply to ethics reviews. (shrink)