The Covid-19 crisis has clarified the demand for an ultra-brief single-session, online, theory-led, empirically supported, psychological intervention for managing stress and improving well-being, especially for people within organizational settings. We designed and delivered “4Ds for Dealing with Distress” during the crisis to address this need. 4Ds unifies a spectrum of familiar emotion regulation strategies, resilience exercises, and problem-solving approaches using perceptual control theory and distils them into a simple four-component rubric. In essence, the aim is to reduce distress and restore (...) wellbeing, both in the present moment through current actions, and through expressing longer-term goal conflicts to discover new perspectives that arise spontaneously after sufficient time and consideration. The intervention is user-led in that it draws on users’ own idiosyncratic and pre-existing experiences, knowledge, skills and resources to help them apply an approach, or combination of approaches, that are proportionate and timed to the nature and context of the stress they are experiencing. In this article we review the empirical basis of the approach within experimental, social, biological and clinical psychology, illustrate the novel and time-efficient delivery format, describe its relevance to sports and exercise, summarise feedback from the recipients of the intervention to date, and describe the directions for future evaluation. (shrink)

The business of cognitive therapy is to transform meanings. What better way to achieve this than through a metaphor? Metaphors straddle two different domains at once, providing a conceptual bridge from a problematic interpretation to a fresh new perspective that can cast one's experiences in a new light. Even the simplest metaphor can be used again and again with different clients, yet still achieve the desired effect. This book is the first to show just how metaphors can be used productively (...) in CBT as an integral part of the treatment. It describes the use of metaphors for a wide range of problems, including anxiety and depression, and provides countless examples of metaphors that have been used by others in CBT. It brings together in one place hundreds of metaphors that experienced therapists have used to great success. It will be a valuable sourcebook for all cognitive behaviour therapists, as well as those training in CBT. (shrink)

Integrating large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 into medical ethics is a novel concept, and understanding the effectiveness of these models in aiding ethicists with decision-making can have significant implications for the healthcare sector. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of GPT-4 in responding to complex medical ethical vignettes and to gauge its utility and limitations for aiding medical ethicists. Using a mixed-methods, cross-sectional survey approach, a panel of six ethicists assessed LLM-generated responses to eight (...) ethical vignettes.The main outcomes measured were relevance, reasoning, depth, technical and non-technical clarity, as well as acceptability of GPT-4’s responses. The readability of the responses was also assessed. Of the six metrics evaluating the effectiveness of GPT-4’s responses, the overall mean score was 4.1/5. GPT-4 was rated highest in providing technical (4.7/5) and non-technical clarity (4.4/5), whereas the lowest rated metrics were depth (3.8/5) and acceptability (3.8/5). There was poor-to-moderate inter-rater reliability characterised by an intraclass coefficient of 0.54 (95% CI: 0.30 to 0.71). Based on panellist feedback, GPT-4 was able to identify and articulate key ethical issues but struggled to appreciate the nuanced aspects of ethical dilemmas and misapplied certain moral principles.This study reveals limitations in the ability of GPT-4 to appreciate the depth and nuanced acceptability of real-world ethical dilemmas, particularly those that require a thorough understanding of relational complexities and context-specific values. Ongoing evaluation of LLM capabilities within medical ethics remains paramount, and further refinement is needed before it can be used effectively in clinical settings. (shrink)

Research on ethical norms has grown in recent years, but imprecise language has made it unclear when these norms prescribe “what ought to be” and when they merely describe behaviors or perceptions (“what is”). Studies of ethical norms, moreover, tend not to investigate whether participants were influenced by the prescriptive aspect of the norm; the studies primarily demonstrate, rather, that people will mimic the behaviors or perceptions of others, which provides evidence for the already well-substantiated social proof theory. In this (...) review article, we delineate three streams of norms research in business ethics: behavioral, perceptual, and prescriptive. We argue that by properly categorizing norms, and designing studies to investigate when prescriptions, more than mere mimicry, improve ethical outcomes in organizations, researchers can enhance managers’ efforts to promote ethical outcomes in organizations. (shrink)

: It has been said that Kant's critical philosophy made it impossible to pursue either the Cartesian rationalist or the Lockean empiricist program of providing a foundation for the sciences (e.g., Guyer 1992). This claim does not hold true for much of nineteenth century French philosophy, especially the eclectic spiritualist tradition that begins with Victor Cousin (1792-1867) and Pierre Maine de Biran (1766-1824) and continues through Paul Janet (1823-99). This tradition assimilated Kant's transcendental apperception of the unity of experience to (...) Descartes's cogito. They then took this to be the method of a philosophical psychology that reveals the active self as substance or cause and thus provides the epistemological grounding for these categories. However, to dismiss these philosophers as simply confused or mistaken would be to overlook the historical role that their interpretations of Kant played in the subsequent development of philosophy and the social sciences in France. Specifically, Émile Durkheim's (1858-1917) sociological theory of the categories was deeply influenced by the eclectic spiritualist tradition and yet at the same time developed in reaction to it, as he thought that its psychological account of the categories failed to bring out their shared or universal character and the extent to which our conceptions of the categories are cultural products. (shrink)

Critics of Laudan's normative naturalism have questioned whether methodological rules can be regarded as empirical hypotheses about relations between means and ends. Drawing on Laudan's defense that rules of method are contingent on assumptions about the world, I argue that even if such rules can be shown to be analytic in principle (Kaiser 1991), in practice the warrant for such rules will be empirical. Laudan's naturalism, however, acquires normative force only by construing both methods and epistemic goals as instrumental to (...) practical concerns, and issues only in context-specific and not general methodological principles. (shrink)

Volume 24, Issue 3-4, May - June 2019, Page 432-436.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Relationship Between Philosophy and Literature Intersecting Themes.

For Hacking, the word "real", like the sexist expression "wear the trousers", takes its meaning from its negative uses. In this essay, I criticize Hacking's reasons for believing that the objects of study of the social sciences are not real. First I argue that the realism issue in the social sciences concerns not unobservable entities but systems of social classification. I then argue that Hacking's social science nominalism derives from his considering social groups in isolation from the entire social system. (...) I conclude that the objects of study of the social sciences do not relegate them to an inferior status. (shrink)

In his lectures on pragmatism presented in the academic year 1913—14 at the Sorbonne, Durkheim argued that James’s pragmatist theory of truth, due to its emphasis on individual satisfaction, was unable to account for the obligatory, necessary and impersonal character of truth. But for Durkheim to make this charge is only to raise the question whether he himself could account for the morally obligatory or normative character of truth. Although rejecting individualism may be necessary for explaining the existence of norms, (...) it is not sufficient. I argue that Durkheim never succeeded in providing a full account of normativity. Of course, this is a problem that remains unresolved today. Nevertheless, Durkheim took an important step beyond James in recognizing the insufficiency of his individualist account of truth. (shrink)

There is a lack of connection between the cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary approaches to the study of the mind, in philosophy as well as the sciences. For instance, although Millikan may display a thorough understanding of evolutionary theory in her arguments for the adaptive value of substance concepts, she gives scant attention to what could be the neural substrates of these concepts. Neuroscience research calls into question her assumption that substance concepts play a role in practical skills and suggests that (...) conceptual knowledge in the brain may be organized by perceptual features rather than by individuals and natural kinds. (shrink)

Renouvier criticized Comte’s positivist philosophy of science and proposed a social contract approach for dealing with normative questions in philosophy of science as well as moral philosophy. Renouvier then questioned Kant’s distinction between practical and theoretical reason and argued that judgments concerning epistemic warrant must be freely made in the same way that moral judgments are made. What counts as scientific knowledge depends on a consensus within the scientific community that develops over time through critical inquiry in much the same (...) way that a legitimate contract governing society at large must. But a scientific contract consisting of conventionally held theories and methods depends for its justification on a larger social contract that guarantees freedom of inquiry. (shrink)

This paper traces August Comte’s attempts to get clear about the concept of mathematical analysis at various stages in his intellectual development. Comte was especially concerned with distinguishing a method of analysis for the resolution of complex prolems from analysis in the sense of a method of drawing inferences. Geometrical analysis serves as his model for the former. In his attempt to get clear about this notion, he discovers an historical succession of different methods all of which may be labeled (...) “analytic.” In modern terms, Comte reveals how each of these methods of analysis characterizes a research program in mathematics, even showing us how more powerful methods came to supplant less powerful methods of analysis. (shrink)