The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)has been identified as part of a supervisoryattentional network for selecting alternativemotor programs in response to top-down corticalprocessing, particularly in situationsinvolving conflicting cognitive tasks.Bilateral lesions to the ACC may be causallyassociated with akinetic mutism, where patientsare unable to voluntarily initiate responses.The clinical and neuroanatomical evidence forthis presumed causal association is examined atlength. However, given the many reciprocalprojections between cerebral, motor, limbic andparalimbic structures within the executivesupervisory network, the association ofvoluntary behavior with a particular structure(the ACC) is (...) highly controversial and thereforepremature at this time. Also considered is theclaim that our subjective sense of voluntarycontrol and free will is simply due toour not having conscious access to theunderlying neural computations that precede our decisions and actions. On thecontrary, the distinction between voluntary and involuntary thoughts and actions mayrather be a matter of temporal and directionallag between parallel computations in differentneural areas. Finally, with reference toDennett, there is an extended discussion ofwhether patients with akinetic mutism are (i) conscious automata, (ii) non-intentional systems, and (iii) in azombie-like state. The relevance of (i)–(iii) for the cognitive neuroscientificliterature is then briefly addressed. (shrink)

Introduction to sensory psychology, by C. Mueller.--Some reflections on brain and mind, by R. Brain.--In search of the engram, by K. Lashly.--Cerebral organization and behavior, by R. W. Sperry.--Relations between the central nervous system and the peripheral organs, by E. von Holst.--Effects of the Gestalt revolution, by J. E. Hochberg.--Seeing in depth, by R. L. Gregory.--The stimulus variables for visual depth perception, by J. J. Gibson.--The elaboration of the universe, by J. Piaget.--Visual perception approached by the method of stabilized images, (...) by R. M. Pritchard, W. Heron, and D. O. Hebb.--Philosophy as rigorous science, by E. Husserl.--The "sensation" as a unit of experience, by M. Merleau-Ponty.--The phenomenology of perception: perceptual implications, by A. Gurwitsch.--The expression of thinking, by E. W. Straus.--The concept of group and the theory of perception, by E. Cassirer.--Norm and pathology of I-world relations, by E. W. Straus.--The metaphysical in man, by M. Merleau-Ponty.--Cultural differences in the perception of geometric illusions, by M. H. Segall, D. T. Campbell, and M. J. Herskovits.--The interpretive cortex, by W. Penfield.--Recovery from early blindness: a case study, by R. L. Gregory and J. G. Wallace.--Visual disturbances after perceptual isolation, by W. Heron, B. K. Doane, and T. H. Scott. (shrink)

Paul E. Griffiths argues that most research on the emotions has been as misguided as Aristotelian efforts to study "superlunary objects" - objects...

In this dissertation, I argue that psychology is central to the meaning and purposes of Nietzsche's work. Rather than suspending all ethical judgment or upholding a universal morality, Nietzsche offers models of psychological strength: the teaching of eternal return, the ethics of enemy love, laughter, and his own writing. In Nietzsche's models for psychological strength, my interpretation finds the basis for separating him from both those who find in Nietzsche the roots of totalitarian politics and those who find in Nietzsche's (...) view of the self a playful creativity they suppose supports liberal individualism. ;Through the deficient model of the free spirit of Beyond Good and Evil, I examine the role of honesty in Nietzsche's work and its confrontation with the need for appearances and masks. Through a careful examination of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, I explore the search for a human meaning for the earth, the problem of revenge, the psychological importance of the teaching of eternal return, and its ethical implications. While Zarathustra begins by teaching the Uebermensch, this empty teaching of creativity gives way to the problem of revenge and the need for a new form of redemption. The teaching of eternal returns seeks to overcome the problem of revenge by reconciling the will with the past, freedom with necessity, and the desire for immortality with the temporal character of human life. I argue that the psychological meaning of eternal return takes priority to its cosmological claims and that this teaching encourages an ethics of enemy-love, internalized as self-overcoming. Nietzsche's use of comedy exhibits the possibility of the internal split that combines the capacity for self-knowledge with the possibility of self-overcoming. I argue that Nietzsche stands above his character Zarathustra who teaches doctrines and that his writing manifests such an internalized split, the self-challenging that makes possible philosophy that does not collapse into dogmatism. His autobiographical Ecce Homo takes a comic form to encourage this split, appeal to a democratic audience, and to exemplify Nietzsche's distance above his own characters and their doctrines. Nietzsche thus succeeds where his character fails by offering indirect communication that makes possible the partial connection necessary for political life and by maintaining the distance from his doctrines necessary for new challenges and continued thought. (shrink)

Acknowledgments T HOMAS CARLYLE MIGHT HAVE HAD MANY CURMUDGEONLY QUALITIES, but this certainly does not extend to the scholars who research him. ...

Because of the complexity of human emotional responses, invariants must be sought not in the responses themselves, but in their generating mechanisms. Lindquist et al. show that functional locationism is a theoretical dead end; their proposed mechanistic framework is a first step toward better models of emotional behavior. We caution, however, that emotions may still be quasi-naturalperceptualtypes.

This first volume in a series entitled Founders of Modern Political and Social Thought, by John Finnis, Professor of Law and Legal Philosophy at Oxford, is the most comprehensive and detailed treatment in print of Aquinas’s political and ethical thought. Finnis is already well known for his 1980 book, Natural Law and Natural Rights, his Thomistic-inspired theory of “basic human goods” in Fundamentals of Ethics, and his attack on the morality of nuclear deterrence, written with Joseph Boyle and Germain Grisez. (...) The present work is an effort to understand and critique Aquinas’s political and ethical thought as philosophy rather than theology, to correct what Finnis considers “one-sided or wrong” beliefs about his thinking, and to see how well it stands up as “a critical theory” today. Thanks to modern technology, Finnis is able to draw upon the full sixty volumes of Aquinas’s works, over 8.5 million words, rather than restricting the discussion as earlier works have done, to the early Commentary on the Sentences, the two Summas, and his advice to the King of Cyprus. (shrink)

The etiological approach to ‘proper functions’ in biology can be strengthened by relating it to Robert Cummins' general treatment of function ascription. The proper functions of a biological trait are the functions it is assigned in a Cummins-style functional explanation of the fitness of ancestors. These functions figure in selective explanations of the trait. It is also argued that some recent etiological theories include inaccurate accounts of selective explanation in biology. Finally, a generalization of the notion of selective explanation allows (...) an analysis of the proper functions of human artifacts. (shrink)

The relationship between individuals' creativity and their ethical ideologies appears to be complex. Applying Forsyth's (1980, 1992) personal moral philosophy model which consists of two independent ethical ideology dimensions, idealism and relativism, we hypothesized and found support for a positive relationship between creativity and relativism. It appears that creative people are less likely than non-creative people to follow universal rules in their moral decision making. However, contrary to our hypothesis and the general stereotype that creative people are less caring about (...) others, we found a positive relationship between creativity and idealism. These findings indicate that highly creative people are likely to be what Forsyth called "situationists," individuals with both an ethic of caring and a pragmatic moral decision-making style. The finding that creative individuals tend to be situationists, and particularly that they tend to be high in idealism, appears to refute the line of reasoning that argues for a "creative personality" characterized in part by social insensitivity. Understanding the relationship between creativity and ethical ideologies has important implications for researchers, managers and teachers. (shrink)

Some ‘naturalist’ accounts of disease employ a biostatistical account of dysfunction, whilst others use a ‘selected effect’ account. Several recent authors have argued that the biostatistical account offers the best hope for a naturalist account of disease. We show that the selected effect account survives the criticisms levelled by these authors relatively unscathed, and has significant advantages over the BST. Moreover, unlike the BST, it has a strong theoretical rationale and can provide substantive reasons to decide difficult cases. This is (...) illustrated by showing how life-history theory clarifies the status of so-called diseases of old age. The selected effect account of function deserves a more prominent place in the philosophy of medicine than it currently occupies. _1_ Introduction _2_ Biostatistical and Selected Effect Accounts of Function _3_ Objections to the Selected Effect Account _3.1_ Boorse _3.2_ Kingma _3.3_ Hausman _3.4_ Murphy and Woolfolk _4_ Problems for the Biostatistical Account _4.1_ Schwartz _5_ Analysis versus Explication _6_ Explicating Dysfunction: Life History Theory and Senescence _7_ Conclusion. (shrink)

The writings of al-Ghazālī give the distinct impression that he was highly concerned with the threat the Ismailis and their doctrines posed. By his own admission, he wrote six separate treatises to refute and condemn them, most importantly his Faḍāʾiḥ al-bāṭiniyya, which he composed in the year 488h in the months prior to his renunciation of government service and departure from Baghdad. His attack focused on the doctrine known as taʿlīm, with its insistence on the unrivaled absolute authority of a (...) single infallible Imam. He had in mind the Alamut teaching by Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ of a doctrine then widely advocated in the Abbasid–Seljuk East. Significantly, there is no sign of this term used in this manner in the western Fatimid domains either earlier or later. However, our knowledge of events in the career of Ḥasan and of his teachings come from much later sources and are in part legendary at best. Although the doctrine of taʿlīm was certainly implicit in Ismaili works long before, in this particular work al-Ghazālī directed his attentions squarely against a new teaching he encountered personally in his own time and place. But we know it otherwise primarily from accounts recorded much later, in particular al-Shahrastānī’s al-Milal wa-l-niḥal. (shrink)

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