There is a small but growing community of researchers spanning a spectrum of disciplines which are united in rejecting the still dominant computationalist paradigm in favor of the enactive approach. The framework of this approach is centered on a core set of ideas, such as autonomy, sense-making, emergence, embodiment, and experience. These concepts are finding novel applications in a diverse range of areas. One hot topic has been the establishment of an enactive approach to social interaction. The main purpose of (...) this paper is to serve as an advanced entry point into these recent developments. It accomplishes this task in a twofold manner: it provides a succinct synthesis of the most important core ideas and arguments in the theoretical framework of the enactive approach, and it uses this synthesis to refine the current enactive approach to social interaction. A new operational definition of social interaction is proposed which not only emphasizes the cognitive agency of the individuals and the irreducibility of the interaction process itself, but also the need for jointly co-regulated action. It is suggested that this revised conception of ‘socio-cognitive interaction’ may provide the necessary middle ground from which to understand the confluence of biological and cultural values in personal action. (shrink)

Among the reasons that Whitehead is such an interesting philosopher is that his work resonates across philosophical traditions. This collection develops connections between Whiteheadian concepts and recent European thinkers. The purpose is not simply to compare, however, but, as editor Jeremy Fackenthal suggests, to develop a Whiteheadian thinking “in tandem” with European philosophers in order to create disruptions or “dislocations” in thought that can engender creative approaches to contemporary problems.One general feature of the book deserves mention at the outset, though (...) I will return to it later in the review: although phenomenology and hermeneutics are each represented in the volume, roughly half of the essays focus on the work of Gilles Deleuze (if we group these together with essays focused on “new materialism,” which is connected with Deleuze, the proportion is more like two-thirds). This will be no surprise, since Deleuze is the European philosopher who was most appreciative of Whitehead. And yet, the result is that the conversation with “continental philosophy” is highly selective.The book is organized into three parts, each comprised of three essays. In part 1, “Technological and Systematic Dislocations,” William S. Hamrick brings Whitehead into conversation with Maurice Merleau-Ponty's concept of “the flesh” to suggest an ecological ontology capable of overcoming the instrumentalization of nature. Hamrick's strategy is to read Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty as contributing to an “ontological foundation” for a sustainable civilization (18). Bo Eberle writes about the “quantified self” suggested in new, wearable self-monitoring technologies. Drawing on Whitehead's notion of causal efficacy, Eberle argues that devices such as Fitbit give us access to bodily states that bypasses the standard ways we are aware of ourselves (i.e., through consciousness). He goes further to argue that, like all ways of knowing, wearable technologies are selective, and that the selection reflects the interests of the manufacturers and promotes a certain kind of subjectivity (in the case of Fitbit, a subjectivity that is oriented toward “getting your steps in”). Whitehead's epistemology thus enables the critic of wearable technologies to understand how contemporary experience and self-understanding is shaped not simply by recent technological mediations but by the material interests embedded in them. J.R. Hustwit and Carl Dyke take on what they call “activist” uses of Whitehead that naively (in their judgment) suggest that a non-relational substance metaphysics is to blame for most of our social ills. They employ the theory of complex adaptive systems in conversation with Whitehead and Antonio Gramsci to show that, in fact, achieving significant social change is far more difficult and even unpredictable than mere insertion of better ideas into public discourse. Dominant hegemonies have ways of adapting and absorbing attempts to undermine them. Here Hustwit and Dyke draw on the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur to suggest that resistance to the dominant hegemony is nevertheless always possible because of the vagueness of discourse, allowing a plurality of competing interpretations and thus fractures in the dominant hegemony. However, even this kind of resistance is impossible to control and its effects incapable of being entirely predicted. To the essay's titular question, “Can Whitehead save the world?” the authors answer, “No.”In part 2, “Animal/Human Dislocations,” Jeremy Fackenthal draws on the new materialism of Rosi Braidotti (and Deleuze) along with Whitehead to argue for a “process-relational” nomadism that culminates in a “becoming-imperceptible.” His reading together of Whitehead and Braidotti creates the opportunity to recast the former's concept of objective immortality in such a way that it does not refer to death so much as to being diffused into a relational network. The satisfaction of an actual occasion may be taken as its translation into its effects among its relations. Fackenthal argues that this becoming-imperceptible makes possible a sustainable presence within a fragile network of life. Deena M. Lin uses Whitehead, Braidotti, and Judith Butler to lay out a vision of human life as precarious and deserving attention, care, and solidarity. She presses this vision as a direct moral assault on US (Trump's) policy toward Syrian refugees. Going further, she draws on Braidotti's posthuman account of zoe to argue for universal connection and solidarity with all life that should foster, as the title of her essay puts it, “Welcoming of Syrian Life.” Tano Posteraro offers an intriguing essay drawing on Jakob von Uexküll's account of animal experience. Posteraro argues that Uexküll's notion of an animal's Umwelt, shaped by its distinctive perceptual apparatus, needs to be supplemented by Whitehead's notion of prehension to account for the active dimension of animal perception. Rather than a passive registering of animal environments, Posteraro argues that the latter are constructed, and that concepts (or conceptual prehensions) should be understood as tools with which such environments are constructed.In part 3, “Time, the World, and Abstraction,” three essays probe ways that Whiteheadian and Deleuzian themes may resonate critically and constructively. Kris Klotz brings the thought of Whitehead and Deleuze together to inquire about how alternatives to present social forms are envisioned. He argues that, for Whitehead, every actual occasion involves a selection of some features of the past, and, further, that every selection is also an abstraction from the concrete welter of influences impinging on it. For Whitehead, then, to envision alternatives involves a critique of abstractions, a reinstatement of the concrete plurality of possibilities. This, for Whitehead, is what rationality does: it works at restoring the concrete, and, with it, a series of alternatives that have been eclipsed. To this Whiteheadian analysis, Klotz adds Deleuze and Guattari's critique of “opinion.” For Deleuze and Guattari, opinion is not an idiosyncrasy but a consensus to which differences of experience are subjected. Philosophy, for Deleuze and Guattari, must always struggle against opinion in order to bring alternatives to light. These conceptions of reason/philosophy, Klotz argues, represent useful ways to critique inequalities and other social wrongs that are embedded in the social forms that are routinely taken for granted. Elijah Prewitt-Davis uses a scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, along with philosophical innovations of Foucault, Deleuze, and Whitehead, to offer a distinctive account of power. Prewitt-Davis calls attention to Deleuze's important book on Leibniz, The Fold, and to how Whitehead's concept of prehension lies at its center. The upshot is that power is not reduced to dominance but, instead, is at work wherever any occasion of experience persists amid the onslaught of the influence of other occasions. Power, as Deleuze wrote, is the capacity to be affected—and to decide how to constitute oneself anew. Keith Robinson offers a detailed account of Whitehead's epistemology along with a reading of Deleuze's analysis of temporality to suggest that there is a common trajectory that seeks to undermine what the title of the essay describes as the “Bifurcation of Nature” (i.e., the separation of natural phenomena and human experience) within the dominant Western philosophical tradition.There is much of value in the volume as a whole. Aside from staging what Spinoza might have called good encounters between Whitehead and a number of continental philosophers, enhancing the conceptual power of each, the contributors are able to make a case that these philosophical trajectories, when read together, have much to contribute to our understanding of and response to the pressing issues of the day. In addition, readers who are interested in the relationship between Whitehead and the new materialism will find this volume to be a helpful resource, stocked with fine examples of how to sharpen new materialist thinking with Whitehead and how to read contemporary contexts through these lenses. On the other hand, this book is not a handbook nor a comprehensive reference. The organizational logic behind its division into sections is murky and the amount of attention given to particular continental philosophers as opposed to others appears somewhat arbitrary: there are recent continental philosophers who get little to no attention at (Derrida, Malabou, Žižek, Agamben, Latour, Nancy, for example), several of whom might prove to be quite interesting to read “in tandem” with Whitehead. Perhaps that is just to say that there are many more essays to be written. (shrink)

The work of 6th century Indian logician Dharmakirti is explored in detail in series of twelve articles analyzing deviant logic, subject failure, andther important aspects of the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist logical tradition.riginal.

Some claim that we are phenomenally aware of our experiences as being our own. Different theorists offer different accounts of how pervasive this sense of mineness is, but what unites them is the claim that such a quality of experience exists. In this paper, I suggest that a compelling case for the existence of the sense of mineness has not yet been made. I then introduce four impediments that any such case must overcome: the Epistemic Impediment; the Representation Impediment; the (...) Function Impediment; and the Malfunction Impediment. Although none of these constitutes a knock-down objection to the thesis that experiences are characterised by a sense of mineness, they each highlight a challenge that advocates of the sense of mineness must address. I propose that any case for mineness should be assessed relative to its ability to overcome these impediments. (shrink)

There is a small but growing community of researchers spanning a spectrum of disciplines which are united in rejecting the still dominant computationalist paradigm in favor of the enactive approach. The framework of this approach is centered on a core set of ideas, such as autonomy, sense-making, emergence, embodiment, and experience. These concepts are finding novel applications in a diverse range of areas. One hot topic has been the establishment of an enactive approach to social interaction. The main purpose of (...) this paper is to serve as an advanced entry point into these recent developments. It accomplishes this task in a twofold manner: it provides a succinct synthesis of the most important core ideas and arguments in the theoretical framework of the enactive approach, and it uses this synthesis to refine the current enactive approach to social interaction. A new operational definition of social interaction is proposed which not only emphasizes the cognitive agency of the individuals and the irreducibility of the interaction process itself, but also the need for jointly co-regulated action. It is suggested that this revised conception of `socio-cognitive interaction' may provide the necessary middle ground from which to understand the confluence of biological and cultural values in personal action. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIt is known that people covertly attend to threatening stimuli even when it is not beneficial for the task. In the current study we examined whether overt selection is affected by the presence of an object that signals threat. We demonstrate that stimuli that signal the possibility of receiving an electric shock capture the eyes more often than stimuli signalling no shock. Capture occurred even though the threat-signalling stimulus was neither physically salient nor task relevant at any point during the (...) experiment. Crucially, even though fixating the threat-related stimulus made it more likely to receive a shock, results indicate that participants could not help but doing it. Our findings indicate that the presence of a stimulus merely signalling the possibility of receiving a shock is prioritised in selection, and exogenously captures the eyes even when this ultimately results in the execution of the threat. Oculomotor capture was particularly pronounced for the fastest saccades which is consistent with the idea that threat influences visual selection at an early stage of processing, when selection is mainly involuntarily. (shrink)

This article explores the experiences of employed and unemployed Ontario Basic Income recipients in the Hamilton and Brantford pilot site. Integrating data from surveys and interviews, the self-reported outcomes of both groups are summarized. These outcomes pertain to employment, physical health, mental health, use of health services, food security, housing stability, financial well-being and social activities. The article highlights the difference in the degree of improvements between recipients who were working before and during the pilot versus those who were not (...) employed at both times. Its broad conclusion is that both groups reported significant benefits, but it was recipients who were continuously employed that reported the greatest improvements. This suggests that basic income could be an important policy tool to improve the lives of low-income and precarious workers in Ontario and perhaps elsewhere. (shrink)

Some of the early‐modern changes in the social framing of science, while often believed to be essential, are shown to be contingent. They contribute to the flawed public narrative around science today, and especially to the misconceptions around science and religion. Four are examined in detail, each of which contributes to the demise of the contemplative stance that science both requires and offers. They are: (1) a turn from an immersed subject to the pretense of a pure objectivity, (2) a (...) turn from imagination as a legitimate pathway to knowledge, (3) a turn from shared and participative science to a restricted professionalism, and (4) an overprosaic reading of the metaphor of the “Book of Nature.” All four, but especially the imperative to consider reading nature as poetry, and a deeper examination of the entanglements between poetry and theoretical science, draw unavoidably on theological ideas, and contribute to a developing “theology of science.”. (shrink)

Kriegel’s self-representationalist theory of phenomenal consciousness pursues two projects. The first is to offer a positive account of how conscious experience arises from physical brain processes. The second is to explain why consciousness misleadingly appears to be irreducible to the physical i.e. to ‘demystify’ consciousness. This paper seeks to determine whether SR succeeds on the second project. Kriegel trades on a distinction between the subjective character and qualitative character of conscious states. Subjective character is the property of being a conscious (...) state at all, while qualitative character determines what it is like to be in that state. Kriegel claims that SR explains why subjective character misleadingly appears irreducible, thereby neutralising the apparent irreducibility of consciousness. I argue that although SR credibly demystifies subjective character, it cannot explain why qualitative character also appears irreducible. I conclude that we should pursue the possibility of a hybrid position that combines SR with an account that does explain the apparent irreducibility of qualitative character. (shrink)

What grounds and justifies conclusions in medical ethics? Is the source external or internal to medicine? Thee influential types of answer have appeared in recent literature: an internal account, an external account, and a mixed internal / external account. The first defends an ethic derived from either the ends of medicine or professional practice standards. The second maintains that precepts in medical ethics rely upon and require justification by external standards such as those of public opinion, law, religious ethics, or (...) philosophical ethics. The third claims that distinct medical ethics have emerged from distinct cultural frameworks, each with norms that govern physicians. There is merit in each perspective, but each overreaches its supporting arguments and fails to appreciate what is legitimate in the theses of its competitors. I propose a fourth account that offers a way to escape limitations of the other three, while retaining their most attractive features. (shrink)

The world of disability theory is currently divided between those who insist it reflects a physical fact affecting life quality and those who believe disability is defined by social prejudice. Despite a dialogue spanning bioethical, medical and social scientific literatures the differences between opposing views remains persistent. The result is similar to a figure-ground paradox in which one can see only part of a picture at any moment. This paper attempts to find areas of commonality between the opposing camps, and (...) thus to rearrange the figures of the paradox at a fundamental level. The purpose is first to identify areas in which common ground can be achieved, and secondarily, to clarify the areas in which disagreement continues. While a general and unified theory of physical difference/disability is beyond the scope of this paper the result may advance that general goal. (shrink)

Abstract -- Background, context, overview, and guiding philosophy -- Emotional intelligence meets virtue ethics : implications for educators -- Emotional intelligence as a component of business ethics pedagogy -- Nourishing life, the daoist concept of virtue -- Cultivation of virtue (dé) 1 according to the neiye -- Cultivation of virtuous leaders according to the huainanzi -- Is there a place for contemplation and inner work in business ethics education? -- Incorporating the inner work of ei and contemplation in ethics education (...) -- Glossary -- About the author. (shrink)

The literature regarding social and environmental sustainability of business focuses primarily on rationales for adopting sustainability strategies and operational practices in support of that goal. In contrast, we examine sustainability from a perspective that has received far less research attention—attitudes that inform managerial decision-making. We develop a conceptual model that identifies six elemental categories of attitudes that can be held independently or aggregated to yield a meta-attitude representing the legitimacy of sustainability. Our model distinguishes among three types of internally held (...) attitudes and externally perceived subjective norms: pragmatic, moral, and cognitive. We propose a refinement of Ajzen's (In: Kuhl J, Beckmann J (eds) Action control: from cognition to behavior, 1985; Organ Behav Hum Decis Process 50:179-211, 1991) Theory of planned behavior (TPB) that incorporates these sub-categories of personal attitudes and subjective norms. Practical implications are discussed including how organizations considering adopting sustainability programs might use the model as a conceptual tool to help achieve and assess program success. (shrink)

‘Natural-History’ is one of the key concepts in the thought of the Frankfurt School critical theorist Theodor W. Adorno, appearing from his very earliest work through to his very last. Unfortunately, the existing literature provides little illumination as to what Adorno’s concept of natural-history is, or what it is supposed to do. This paper thus seeks to supply the required understanding. Ultimately, I argue that ‘natural-history’ is best understood as a sort of ‘therapeutic’ concept, intended to dissolve certain philosophical anxieties (...) which might otherwise present obstacles to our being able to obtain a critical-theoretical understanding of reality. (shrink)

In a health service with limited resources we must make decisions about who to treat first. In this paper I develop a version of the restoration argument according to which those whose need for resources is a consequence of their voluntary choices should receive lower priority when it comes to health care. I then consider three possible problems for this argument based on those that have been raised against other theories of this type: that we don't know in a particular (...) case that the illness is self-inflicted, that it seems that all illness is self-inflicted in the sense used in my argument, and finally that this type of approach incorporates an unacceptable moralising element if it is to avoid giving those like fire-fighters a lower priority for treatment. I argue that the position outlined here has the resources to respond to each of these objections. (shrink)

The research importance of biobanked biological materials and their derived data is growing, especially as these are increasingly linked with individual and population‐level medical and health information. The number, diversity, and size of biobanks are growing in tandem. So, too, is the number of individuals whose donations are being used in biobank‐supported research, with or without their knowledge. Pretty soon, we all will be “participants” in a variety of research projects we know nothing about. Until recently, our leftover tissue or (...) deidentified medical information could be used for research without our consent or even our knowledge. Even if we've been asked–as the current regulations require when research uses are anticipated‐we were most likely asked to give a blanket consent to any future use, with no prospect of learning about or controlling how our material is later used. This is an ethically problematic state of affairs, but there are options for improving it. (shrink)

This article considers photography’s role as a visual technology and the consequent effects of expanded frames of knowledge. At the very moment human vision and memory were called into profound doubt, photography provided a mechanical, prosthetic extension to perceptual experience. However, as a technology, it contains the potential for both revelation and control. In this article, photography is considered as a technique that: expands human perception; inscribes its own mechanical operations into new visual forms, therefore enframing and encoding visible knowledge; (...) and can be harnessed as a disciplinary instrument and technique of power. As a consequence, photography’s revealing of hitherto invisible dimensions of reality unfolds within a history of revelation, spectacle and power. (shrink)

Some people are such impressive altruists that they seem to us to already be doing more than enough. And yet they see themselves as compelled to do even more. Can our view be reconciled with theirs? Can a moderate view of beneficence's demands be made consistent with a requirement to be ambitiously altruistic? I argue that a reconciliation is possible if we adopt a dynamic view of beneficence, which addresses the pattern that our altruism is required to take over time. (...) This frees up theoretical space for understanding how a moral duty of self-development can intersect with the requirements of beneficence, so that the amount that we are required to sacrifice increases without our beneficence becoming immoderate. (shrink)

Takes a fresh approach to the 'science and religion' debate, taking a scientist's reading of the enigmatic and beautiful Book of Job as a centrepiece, and asking what science might ultimately be for. Rather than conflicting with faith, science can be seen as a deeply religious activity.

An argument is presented which shows that coherence theories of justification are committed to a conception of epistemic support which conflicts with an axiom of probability theory.

On December 15, 2011, a final report was issued by the Committee on the Use of Chimpanzees in Biomedical and Behavioral Research, which had been convened by the U. S. Institute of Medicine (IOM) in collaboration with National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies. Within a month of its release, this report was designated by Wired Science one of the “top scientific discoveries of 2011” (Wired Science Staff 2011). The ad hoc Committee responsible for this report was formed at (...) the request of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in response to congressional inquiry that had been prompted by expressions of public concern.1 The issues addressed in the report are profoundly ethical, despite NIH’s .. (shrink)

Around the world, the population is ageing in ways that pose new challenges for healthcare providers. To date these have mostly been formulated in terms of challenges created by increasing costs, and the focus has been squarely on life-prolonging treatments. However, this focus ignores the ways in which many older people require life-enhancing treatments to counteract the effects of physical and mental decline. This paper argues that in doing so it misses important aspects of what justice requires when it comes (...) to older people. (shrink)

Two positions that Rosamund Rhodes puts forward are the proper starting point for this commentary: 1. Medical ethics based on the common morality that uses a body of abstract principles or rules are not ‘an adequate and appropriate guide for physicians’ actions’. 2. We need, but do not have, a true professional medical ethics for physicians, which must be ‘distinctly different’ from ethics based on common morality. I will argue that both positions are mistaken. Rhodes does not analyse what she (...) means by a professional ‘medical ethics’ and does not supply content for what she calls ‘medical professionalism’. ‘Common morality‘ is also not given a precise meaning. However, I set aside these problems of conceptual clarity and concentrate on a paradigm case of professional ethics for physicians in interactions with patients. My example is The Belmont Report. Belmont is almost certainly a document that, in the USA, has for four decades been highly influential on physicians, especially physicians engaged in clinical research. It is not merely research ethics. In full satisfaction of the American Board of Medical Specialties’ ‘definition of medical professionalism’, The Belmont Report puts forward a system of ethical principles showing that physicians and other health professionals must conduct research in the service of the public interest and the well-being of patient–subjects. The Belmont Report also satisfies the earlier delineated conditions of medical professionalism in the American Board of Internal Medicine’s ‘Physician Charter’, which are stated in terms of the ‘fundamental principles’ of the primacy of patient welfare, patient autonomy and social justice.1,1–3 Belmont more than satisfies these conditions of medical professionalism. Indeed Belmont may well be the source of the principles …. (shrink)

In this paper, we answer a question asked in Koepke et al. regarding a Mathias criteria for Tree-Prikry forcing. Also we will investigate Prikry forcing using various filters. For completeness and self inclusion reasons, we will give proofs of many known theorems.

Social attention is thought to require detecting the eyes of others and following their gaze. To be effective, observers must also be able to infer the person's thoughts and feelings about what he or she is looking at, but this has only rarely been investigated in laboratory studies. In this study, participants' eye movements were recorded while they chose which of four patterns they preferred. New observers were subsequently able to reliably guess the preference response by watching a replay of (...) the fixations. Moreover, when asked to mislead the person guessing, participants changed their looking behavior and guessing success was reduced. In a second experiment, naïve participants could also guess the preference of the original observers but were unable to identify trials which were lies. These results confirm that people can spontaneously use the gaze of others to infer their judgments, but also that these inferences are open to deception. (shrink)

Synthetic approaches to social interaction support the development of a second-person neuroscience. Agent-based models and psychological experiments can be related in a mutually informing manner. Models have the advantage of making the nonlinear brainenvironmentbrain system as a whole accessible to analysis by dynamical systems theory. We highlight some general principles of how social interaction can partially constitute an individual's behavior.

This research describes and empirically evaluates the application of a business ethics pedagogy informed by neuroscience and evolutionary biology that suggest ethical decisions are made unconsciously and emotionally. Moral Foundation Theory (MFT) provides a framework that considers a range of values individuals rely on for decision-making. This relates to Virtue ethics (VE) that develops intellectual and character virtues, requires emotional development and is thus suitable for guiding business ethics pedagogy. This study focuses on a business ethics course integrating intellectual virtue (...) and character virtue pedagogies, including contemplative and emotional intelligence skills practices. The aim of the course is to develop character, providing future managers the means to enact ethical decision-making through self-awareness of emotions, intrinsic values and translate these into ethical behavior. Pre-Post Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Moral Foundation Questionnaires (MFQ) are used to evaluate the development of students’ character virtues, i.e., increased emotional awareness, emotional regulation and intrinsic values. This paper mainly seeks to understand how to develop ethical behavior, beyond learning didactic definitions of what is ethically right and what is wrong, i.e. focusing on the learning process that can lead to personal ethical judgment and conduct. The related pedagogy integrates transdisciplinary theories and practices, and as such suggests a holistic approach to ethical behavior transformation. The results indicate limited, significant changes in all measures except emotional awareness. This developing field requires more research to identify the contributions of MFT and related pedagogy to students’ ethical development. (shrink)

Pragmatism as it originally arose in America has always been pluralist, always willing to find space for those who understood it in other ways. But in the emergence of neo-analytic pragmatism it is possible that the term has been stretched beyond its limits in a way that does more harm than good in veiling if not actually obscuring central tenets that are well worth preserving. The aim of this article is to describe some aspects of this phenomenon and to draw (...) some tentative conclusions. (shrink)