In this paper I compare different criteria for moral status, and assess Regan's notion of a "subject of a life".

This contribution investigates the intimate relation and the tension between legal and literary procedures of personification and subjectivation. In order to do so, the contribution turns to Kafka’s The Trial and examines the proximity of the juridical procedure depicted in the novel, intending to establish Josef K. as a subject, to the narrative procedures of the novel itself that aims at bringing forth an accountable protagonist. The intimate relation of the legal procedures described in the novel and the narrative ones (...) of the novel itself is rooted in a shared historical heritage that impacts both. I argue that the fundamental configuration of advocacy in the classical rhetorical procedure: speaking for someone, against someone, in front of an other, lies at the basis of both legal and literary procedures. Against this common rhetorical background I investigate developments in legal procedures and the formation of the modern novel in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Both developments occlude the rhetorical mechanisms of speaking-for and speaking against and turn the rhetorical procedures of personification into mechanisms of subjectivation. Kafka’s Proceß reflects these developments, yet does not affirm this transformation and ultimately does not result in a guilty subject and a ‘believable’ character. Rather, the novel embodies a gesture of resistance against certain modes of subjectivation that seem to be prevalent both in modern law and in the novel of formation. (shrink)

This paper focuses on three theories of personal identity that incorporate the idea that personal identity is the result of a person’s adopting certain attitudes towards certain mental states and actions. I call these theories subjective theories of personal identity. I argue that it is not clear what the proponents of these theories mean by “personal identity”. On standard theories, such as animalism or psychological theories, the term “personal identity” refers to the numerical identity of (...) persons and its analysis provides the persistence conditions for persons. I argue that if the subjective theories purport to provide a criterion of numerical personal identity, they fail. A different interpretation may suggest that they purport to provide a non-numerical type of identity for the purpose of providing plausible analyses of certain identity-related practical concerns. I argue that the criteria the subjective theories provide fail to capture several of the identity-related concerns. As a result, this interpretation must be rejected as well. (shrink)

The distinction between personal level explanations and subpersonal ones has been subject to much debate in philosophy. We understand it as one between explanations that focus on an agent’s interaction with its environment, and explanations that focus on the physical or computational enabling conditions of such an interaction. The distinction, understood this way, is necessary for a complete account of any agent, rational or not, biological or artificial. In particular, we review some recent research in Artificial Life that pretends (...) to do completely without the distinction, while using agent-centered concepts all the way. It is argued that the rejection of agent level explanations in favour of mechanistic ones is due to an unmotivated need to choose among representationalism and eliminativism. The dilemma is a false one if the possibility of a radical form of externalism is considered. (shrink)

The distinction between personal level explanations and subpersonal ones has been subject to much debate in philosophy. We understand it as one between explanations that focus on an agent’s interaction with its environment, and explanations that focus on the physical or computational enabling conditions of such an interaction. The distinction, understood this way, is necessary for a complete account of any agent, rational or not, biological or artificial. In particular, we review some recent research in Artificial Life that pretends (...) to do completely without the distinction, while using agent-centred concepts all the way. It is argued that the rejection of agent level explanations in favour of mechanistic ones is due to an unmotivated need to choose among representationalism and eliminativism. The dilemma is a false one if the possibility of a radical form of externalism is considered. (shrink)

The distinction between personal level explanations and subpersonal ones has been subject to much debate in philosophy. We understand it as one between explanations that focus on an agent’s interaction with its environment, and explanations that focus on the physical or computational enabling conditions of such an interaction. The distinction, understood this way, is necessary for a complete account of any agent, rational or not, biological or artificial. In particular, we review some recent research in Artificial Life that pretends (...) to do completely without the distinction, while using agent-centred concepts all the way. It is argued that the rejection of agent level explanations in favour of mechanistic ones is due to an unmotivated need to choose among representationalism and eliminativism. The dilemma is a false one if the possibility of a radical form of externalism is considered. (shrink)

In a typical non-identity case, the agent performs an action that causes someone to exist at a low but positive level of well-being, although an alternative was to create another, much happier person instead. There seem to be strong moral reasons against what the agent does, but it is difficult to explain how this can be so. In particular, it seems that on a simple counterfactual account of harm, the action does not harm anyone, as it does not make anyone (...) worse off than he or she would have been had the action not been performed. In this paper, I criticize the response that the action nevertheless harms the actual child, as well as the response that it makes the counterfactual child worse off. I argue that the following alternative view deserves attention: a compound of the actual and the counterfactual child is made worse off by the action. (shrink)

In a typical non-identity case, the agent performs an action that causes someone to exist at a low but positive level of well-being, although an alternative was to create another, much happier person instead. There seem to be strong moral reasons against what the agent does, but it is difficult to explain how this can be so. In particular, it seems that on a simple counterfactual account of harm, the action does not harm anyone, as it does not make anyone (...) worse off than he or she would have been had the action not been performed. In this paper, I criticize the response that the action nevertheless harms the actual child, as well as the response that it makes the counterfactual child worse off. I argue that the following alternative view deserves attention: a compound of the actual and the counterfactual child is made worse off by the action. (shrink)

This study investigates the impact of fraud/lawsuit revelation on U.S. top executive turnover and compensation. It also examines potential explanatory variables affecting the executive turnover and compensation among U.S. fraud/lawsuit firms. Four important findings are documented. First, there was significantly higher executive turnover among U.S. firms with fraud/lawsuit revelation in the Wall Street Journal than matched firms without such revelation. Second, although on average, U.S. top executives received an increase in cash compensation after fraud/lawsuit revelation, this increase is smaller than (...) that of matched non-fraud/lawsuit firms. Third, fraud/lawsuit firms were more likely to change top executive when chief executive officer (CEO) was not the board chairman and CEO had been on the board for a short time. Fourth, fraud/lawsuit firms were more likely to reduce their executive cash compensation when profitability was low, firms were involved in fraud, the compensation committee size was small, and the board met more often. These findings indicate that although, in general, U.S. fraud/lawsuits firms did not reduce their executive cash compensation, those involved in fraud were more likely to reduce their executive cash compensation than to change their top executives. The finding, that ethical standards is not a significant factor for U.S. executive turnover nor compensation reduction, suggests that ethics appears to play no part in the board’s decisions, and that U.S. firms may have ethical standards in writing but they do not implement nor enforce the standards. (shrink)

This book is designed to provide an introduction to the history of American thought. It does not attempt to be encyclopedia in its coverage of the subject; many familiar names of names of men and books are absent.

Buddhist concepts of personal life and responsibilities.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:FOR A NON-VIOLENT ACCORD: EDUCATING THE PERSON Marie-Louise Martinez Education has been criticized, no doubt justly, for the symbolic violence of its prohibitions and exclusionary rituals that mirror the violence of society (Bourdieu, etc.). But this criticism is short-sighted. When restraints are removed in teaching and education (in the family and in the school), violence wells up anew and produces at least the following two results: access to meaning (...) and knowledge is restricted; access to the law and its structure-inducing prohibitions is restricted. The result is that we foster vulnerable personalities who confuse fiction and reality, and who do not hesitate to turn their violence into acts of hostility directed toward themselves, other people, and society. A further consequence has been a certain violent non-differentiation that has tended in turn to produce a violent re-differentiation ofsociety. There is a nostalgia everywhere today for a return to discipline, to the rule oflaw, etc. One hears talk of the "sanctuary of the classroom" or again of the necessity of preserving a "symbolic cloister." We are not able, purely and simply, to feel remorse for having maintained the rule ofa violent symbolic order. One might ask in what the symbolic consists. How is it connected to teaching and education? Is there not a fundamental violence in the symbolic? Does there exist a less violent symbolic, or even a non-violent one? How might one define it and put it to work in teaching and education? Girardian theory can help us to reinterpret various contributions from a number of authors in the human sciences (Benveniste, Lacan, etc.) and from the personalist philosophy of language. I would like to propose the hypothesis that there are two stages ofthe symbolic: first, a violent symbolic accord and, second, a non-violent threshold within the symbolic, which alone can serve as an appropriate model for teaching and education. 56Marie-Louise Martinez I. The symbolic and its powers. We are not using symbolic in its specific sense as metaphorical or figurative language as it occurs in myth and poetry but in a more general sense, i.e., to refer to the totality ofthe sign and code systems employed by human beings, as that which allows for the production and deployment of significations within society. Stemming from the Greek symbolein (to throw or put together, to assemble), the symbolic is that type or order of signs that assembles. Much more than the pure language of linguistics, the symbolic is the totality ofverbal, non-verbal, and para-verbal conventions, of systems ofexchange, and ofrites. It also comprises the regulated use ofbodies and ofnature. Our definition ofthe symbolic is not idealist: more than simply the expression of ideas, it is also interaction and action, on oneself, on others, and the world. It includes technical and bodily activities to the degree that these have been codified. In this sense, the symbolic (in agreement with philosophers as diverse as Cassirer or Clifford Geertz) can be said to embrace the totality of what is called culture. But ifthe symbol throws orputs together, it is necessary to discuss what and why and how it does so. The modern science ofsigns (semiology) has shown that the sign or symbol serves to place in relation. Relying on the contemporary semiology that stems from the American philosopher Pierce, and also on the work of Francis Jacques in France, we can say that this relation, far from being a simple binary one (sign/referent or sign/signifier) is a complex relation which aligns signs with the objects to which they refer, but also with the people deploying those signs. This latter signifying relation, which is intersubjective and social, was invisible in Saussurean semiology. In itself, the symbolic is the product of a complex relation which links people among themselves and the things referred to by the agency of signs. In other words, the basis of the signifying relationship is not the dyad subject/object (relation to objects) but a triadic relation, subject/ subject/object (intersubjective and objectai). This triangular relationship, which traverses the intersubjective and the objectai, is a relationship of convention, underlined in antiquity by Plato in the Cratylus (for Hermogenes, a word... (shrink)

Incidental findings in research with human participants may have implications for a person’s present health or future health outcomes. Current guidelines focus on methods for handling and reporting incidental findings from biological test data but incidental findings might also arise from non-biological tests. This article presents three examples in which the results from non-biological test data can be predictive of future disease and should be disclosed to research participants. It is intended to increase awareness and facilitate further discussion about the (...) reporting of incidental findings from non-biological data. (shrink)

Purpose. With the consideration of anthropological tendencies in modern science, the purpose of the article is to analyze the problem of the subject of cognition, philosophical-psychological rationale for the need to complement it by the concept of "the researcher’s personality". Theoretical basis. The authors rely on post-non-classical methodological tools and basic principles of complexity theory, as well as theoretical provisions of epistemological constructivism, the results of theoretical and empirical psychological studies. In them, authors revealed psychological features of the potential of (...) self-realization of a person prone to innovation and research activities and transfessionalism, including the resources and reserves of the researcher’s personality. Originality. The concept of the subject of cognition is expanded by the concept of "researcher’s personality" and derivative concepts that describe the dynamics of self-harmonization of originative co-generative strengths and opportunities of self-realization of an enlightened person, reveal the degree of correlation in the cognition of the subjective and objective dimensions of his life. It is substantiated that further analysis of the problem of anthropologization of science requires appropriate onto-epistemological grounds that reveals the unity of cognition-education-skill as an essential characteristic of the maturity of the researcher’s personality of scientific knowledge. Conclusions. In the context of anthropological shifts in modern science, the philosophical-psychological analysis of the problem of the subject of cognition is actualized. The psychological research proves the advisability of using the "researcher’s personality" concept as a basic one for understanding the formation of an enlightened human-creator, capable of auto-eco-organization, self-transcendence, and syzygy with the Universe at different levels of innovational research activity. The self-realization of the researcher-personality is a way-search for the authenticity of the multiform unity of life, the personal meaning of scientific truth, and the self-harmonization of the originative co-generative co-determinative strengths in the knowledge of an enlightened person. Including the concept of the subject of cognition in the ontology of the unity of difference-multidimensional poly-essential autopoetic integrity, the anthropologization of science is intended to revive the ancient idea in the unity of truth, education and skill of a scientist, defining the ideal of a modern human-transfessional. (shrink)

The little francophone community of Port-au-Port Peninsula in Newfoundland is particularly representative of non-standard French spoken in North America. This paper tries to elaborate a grammatical analysis in order to justify the transcriptions of verb forms in the Dictionnaire des régionalismes de Terre-Neuve. In the sentence “I passait les maisons, [bladʒe] ac le monde”, for instance, [bladʒe] could be interpreted as “blaguait” or “blaguer.” In standard French, the same sentence could be translated as “il allait de porte en porte parler (...) avec les gens” or “il allait de porte en porte, parlait avec les gens.” The omission of the subject pronoun seems to allow the transition toward a unmarked verb form either under a short form, limited to the radical of the verb, without any flexional mark like an imperative form, or a full form, like what Remacle calls “infinitif substitut.” The last stade of this evolution is the nominal phrase, whose use is widely spread in popular French, where it often follows a verb phrase. (shrink)

Despite the growing attention to oppression and resistance in social and political philosophy as well as ethics, philosophers continue to struggle to describe and appropriately attribute agency under non-ideal circumstances of oppression and structural injustice. This chapter identifies some features of new accounts of non-ideal agency and then examines a particular problem for such theories, what Serene Khader has called the agency dilemma. Under the agency dilemma, attempts to articulate the agency of subjects living under oppression must on the (...) one hand avoid overemphasizing constraints on agency, and thereby producing paternalistic theories that “deny agency” for oppressed subjects, and on the other hand avoid failing to fully appreciate the effects of oppression on agency, thereby missing crucial features of how oppression unjustly shapes a person’s lived possibilities. This chapter traces this dilemma to a preoccupation with ascribing agency, which produces problematic descriptive and political effects for theorizing agency under oppression: what the author calls an asymmetry problem and a disenfranchisement problem. Finally, the chapter proposes that the agency dilemma might be ameliorated if theorists scrutinize more closely how moral, epistemic, and political agency interact and overlap in life under oppression. (shrink)

In Reasons and Persons, Parfit (1984) posed a challenge: provide a satisfying normative account that solves the Non-Identity Problem, avoids the Repugnant and Absurd Conclusions, and solves the Mere-Addition Paradox. In response, some have suggested that we look toward person-affecting views of morality for a solution. But the person-affecting views that have been offered so far have been unable to satisfy Parfit's four requirements, and these views have been subject to a number of independent complaints. This paper describes a person-affecting (...) account which meets Parfit's challenge. The account satisfies Parfit's four requirements, and avoids many of the criticisms that have been raised against person-affecting views. (shrink)

Cette étude envisage les notions de sujet, d’individu et de personne dans une perspective d’anthropologie historique. La période considérée va de la disparition de l’Empire romain d’Occident à la mutation féodale, et son analyse est centrée sur la convergence de la culture savante – c’est-à-dire chrétienne – avec ce que nous pouvons savoir de la culture populaire à propos des trois notions précitées. Inaugurée par saint Augustin dans ses Confessions, l’émergence de la notion de personne coïncide avec l’oblitération du sujet (...) dans le De Trinitate de l’évêque d’Hippone. Cette conception rejoint celle du corps grotesque qui traverse la culture populaire de cette époque. Quant à l’individu, il n’apparaît durant toute la période considérée que sous la forme de l’individu particulier dans le cadre d’une individualité de types, et non sous celle de l’individu singulier propre à notre modernité. (shrink)

‘Soul’, ‘self’, ‘substance’ and ‘person’ are just four of the terms often used to refer to the human individual. Cutting across metaphysics, ethics, and religion the nature of personal identity is a fundamental and long-standing puzzle in philosophy. Personal Identity and Applied Ethics introduces and examines different conceptions of the self, our nature, and personal identity and considers the implications of these for applied ethics. A key feature of the book is that it considers a range of (...) different approaches to personal identity; philosophical, religious, and cross-cultural, including perspectives from non-Western traditions. Within this comparative framework, Andrea Sauchelli examines the following topics: -Early views of the soul in Plato, Christianity, and Descartes -The Buddhist ‘no-self’ views and the self as a fiction -Confucian ideas of our nature and the importance of self-cultivation as constitutive of the self -Locke’s theory of personal identity as continuity of consciousness and memory and objections to Locke’s argument by Butler and Reid as well as contemporary critics -The theory of ‘animalism’ and arguments concerning embodied concepts of personal identity -Practical and narrative theories of personal identity and moral agency -Personal identity and issues in applied ethics, including abortion, organ transplantation, and the idea of life after death -Implications of life-extending technologies for personal identity. Throughout the book Sauchelli also considers the views of important recent philosophers of personal identity such as Sydney Shoemaker, Bernard Williams, Derek Parfit, Marya Schechtman, and Christine Korsgaard, placing these in helpful historical context. Chapter summaries, a glossary of key terms, and suggestions for further reading make this a refreshing, approachable introduction to personal identity and applied ethics. It is an ideal text for courses on personal identity that consider both Western and non-Western approaches and that apply theories of personal identity to ethical problems. It will also be of interest to those in related subjects such as religious studies and history of ideas. (shrink)

The article discusses the forms and ways of the impact of modern digital media on people, groups, and society as a whole. The unilateral communication effect on a person is emphasized. The accent is made on the transmission model of information dissemination, taking into account the formation of its ritualized form. The author pays his particular attention to the status and role of an individual in interaction with mass media; provides arguments about the exclusion of a person from the communication (...) dimension. The activity of modern digital media structures is substantiated as social constructors of reality. The researcher shows the technological and visual possibilities of mass media in the creation of artificial, illusory simulated models of the world perceived by a person as objective, authentic, and real. Mass media are presented as an integral social institution of modern society, operating autonomously, based on its own rules and norms, technological and content principles, conditions of network communication, digitalization, and mediatization of society. The article presents the concepts of theoretical comprehension of mass media as a self-sufficient autopoietic system of N. Luhmann, and consideration of media communication implementation as a non-communication of J. Baudrillard. The author stresses the role of spectacle and visuality in the process of TV influence on the subjects, in the construction of images and models of the world, comparable with the already available information consumers pictures of the world. The contradictory and ambiguous conceptual assessments of the activity and influence of mass media on the modern man are emphasized. (shrink)

While first-person methods are essential for a science of consciousness, it is controversial what form these methods should take and whether any such methods are reliable. I propose that first-person experiments are a reliable method for investigating conscious experience. I outline the history of these methods and describe their characteristics. In particular, a first-person experiment is an intervention on a subject's experience in which independent variables are manipulated, extraneous variables are held fixed, and in which the subject makes a phenomenal (...) judgement about the target experience of the investigation. I examine historical and contemporary examples of first-person experiments: Mariotte’s demonstration of the visual blind spot, Kanizsa’s subjective contours, the Tse Illusion, and investigations of the non-uniform resolution of the visual field. I discuss the role that phenomenal contrast plays in these methods, and how they overcome typical introspective errors. I argue that their intersubjective repeatability is an important factor in their scientific status, however, it is not the only factor. That they control for extraneous factors and confounds is another factor which sets them apart from pseudoscience (e.g., the perception of auras), and hence another reason for classifying them as genuine experiments. Furthermore, by systematically mapping out the structure of visual experience, these methods make scientific progress. Praises of such first-person experimental approaches may not always be sung by philosophers and psychologists, but they continue to flourish as respectable scientific methods nevertheless. (shrink)

In this innovative study of the relationship between persons and their bodies, E. J. Lowe demonstrates the inadequacy of physicalism, even in its mildest, non-reductionist guises, as a basis for a scientifically and philosophically acceptable account of human beings as subjects of experience, thought and action. He defends a substantival theory of the self as an enduring and irreducible entity - a theory which is unashamedly committed to a distinctly non-Cartesian dualism of self and body. Taking up the physicalist (...) challenge to any robust form of psychophysical interactionism, he shows how an attribution of independent causal powers to the mental states of human subjects is perfectly consistent with a thoroughly naturalistic world view. He concludes his study by examining in detail the role which conscious mental states play in the human subject's exercise of its most central capacities for perception, action, thought and self-knowledge. (shrink)

In this article, it is claimed that the protective provisions for adults with impaired decision-making capacity are misguided, insofar as they do not conclusively state whether research on this group should be permitted only as an exception, and as they arbitrarily allow for some groups to benefit from such research while others will not. Moreover, the presumed or former will of the subject is given insufficient weight, and the minimal risk standard does not make sense in this context. Because of (...) these problems, the present guidelines allow for the possibility of vulnerable people being exploited, something that is hidden behind a guise of solidarity. Instead we need to address the real issues at stake by rewriting the present statutes. It is suggested that new guidelines should be in some continuity with earlier efforts. However, in order to protect these subjects there is additional need for appointed representatives who monitor research and for legal obligations to compensate for any injuries suffered. Without these or similar measures we won't have an adequate system in place for the protection of non-benefiting persons who are unable to consent to research. (shrink)

In this highly original monograph, Nicholas Georgalis proposes that the concept of minimal content is fundamental both to the philosophy of mind and to the philosophy of language. He argues that to understand mind and language requires minimal content -- a narrow, first-person, non-phenomenal concept that represents the subject of an agent's intentional state as the agent conceives it. Orthodox third-person objective methodology must be supplemented with first-person subjective methodology. Georgalis demonstrates limitations of a strictly third-person methodology in the study (...) of mind and language and argues that these deficiencies can be corrected only by the incorporation of a first-person methodology. Nevertheless, this expanded methodology makes possible an objective understanding of the subjective. Georgalis argues against the conflation of consciousness and subjectivity with phenomenal experience. Consequently, and contrary to common belief, he argues that consciousness without phenomenality is as strongly implicated in intentionality as it is in phenomenal states. He proposes a broader understanding of the "hard problem" of consciousness, arguing that there is an "explanatory gap problem" for both phenomenal and intentional states. His theory provides a framework that renders the vexing relations between mental and brain states comprehensible. Georgalis also argues for novel explanations of the phenomenal and of representation -- explanations that follow from the core concept of minimal content. Treating the topics of meaning and reference, he introduces a first-person concept of intended reference derivative from minimal content that resolves various problems in the philosophy of language. Eschewing ontology, Georgalis proposes his theory as a means to make sense of, analyze, and relate issues in the philosophies of mind and language. The concept of minimal content, he argues, plays a necessary, pivotal, unifying, and foundational role in advancing our understanding of these issues. (shrink)

In discussion about basic theoretical approaches in a non-Cartesian psychology several candidates for a key concept were proposed, such as action, activity, relation, dialogue and discourse. None of these concepts, however, sufficiently grounds psychological theories of individual psychology in social practice. To accomplish this we need to conceptualize subjects as participants in structures of ongoing social practice. In this paper I argue why and address issues of subjectivity as encountered by persons in their participation in complex structures of social (...) practice. I introduce the concept of personal conduct of life and life-trajectory as elaborations of my theory. And I discuss this theoretical approach and show what is at stake in developing it by comparing it to similar approaches in the current literature on the person, self, and identity. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss a seemingly straightforward argument against physicalism which, despite being implicit in much of the philosophical debate about consciousness, has not received the attention it deserves (compared to other, better-known “epistemic”, “modal”, and “conceivability” arguments). This is the argument from the non-supervenience of the first-personal (and indexical) facts on the third-personal (and non-indexical) ones. This non-supervenience, together with the assumption that the physical facts (as conventionally understood) are third-personal, entails that (...) some facts – namely, first-personal, phenomenal ones – do not supervene on the physical facts. Unlike other arguments against physicalism, the first-personal argument, if successful, refutes not only physicalism but also other third-personal metaphysical pictures, including standard versions of dualism. (shrink)

Shun Kwong-loi argues that the distinction between first- and third-person points of view does not play as explanatory a role in our moral psychology as has been supposed by contemporary philosophical discussions. He draws insightfully from the Confucian tradition to better elucidate our everyday experiences of moral emotions, arguing that it offers an alternative and more faithful perspective on our experiences of anger and compassion. However, unlike the distinction between first- and third-person points of view, Shun’s descriptions of anger and (...) compassion leave unarticulated what would be necessary to differentiate these responses from non-moral responses. Here, I make a friendly suggestion on how this explanatory gap might be filled, providing complementary grounding for Shun’s observations by way of K. C. Bhattacharyya’s phenomenological analysis of feeling. It fills the gap by means of a gradation in the possible depth of emotional responses found in the a priori structure of a feeling experience for any subject. The payoff of such a comparison between Shun’s explication of Confucian moral psychology and Bhattacharyya’s explication of rasa theory is not only a possible phenomenological grounding for the former but also a potential way to articulate a missing ethics in Bhattacharyya’s thought. (shrink)

This innovative volume is an extended intellectual conversation about the ways personal lives are being undone and remade today. Examining the ethnography of the modern subject, this preeminent group of scholars probes the continuity and diversity of modes of personhood across a range of Western and non-Western societies. Contributors consider what happens to individual subjectivity when stable or imagined environments such as nations and communities are transformed or displaced by free trade economics, terrorism, and war; how new information and (...) medical technologies reshape the relation one has to oneself; and which forms of subjectivity and life possibilities are produced against a world in pieces. The transdisciplinary conversation includes anthropologists, historians of science, psychologists, a literary critic, a philosopher, physicians, and an economist. The authors touch on how we think and write about contingency, human agency, and ethics today. (shrink)

For many people subjected to systemic injustice, life under oppression involves participating in what philosophers have called “non-normative behavior,” or behavior that fails to comply with oppressive norms. Discussions of the value of such actions tend to emphasize the benefits they have for other people who are subjugated. I argue that while benefiting others is a noble goal, there are oppressed persons for whom such altruistic reasons do not apply. For all that, acting non-normatively may still be ethically worthwhile. I (...) highlight another source of value for non-normative behavior, stemming from one’s personal projects and relationships. Finally, I argue that having a disposition to engage in non-normative actions in the right way - a trait which I call rebelliousness - is a virtue under oppression, the right reasons for which include both altruistic and non-altruistic concerns. (shrink)

Non‐Cartesian substance dualism is a position in the philosophy of mind concerning the nature of the mind‐body relation or, more exactly, the person‐body relation. Whereas Cartesian substance dualism takes subjects of experience to be necessarily immaterial and indeed nonphysical substances, non‐Cartesian substance dualism does not insist on this. This distinctive feature of non‐Cartesian substance dualism gives it certain advantages over Cartesian dualism, without compelling it to forfeit any of the intuitive appeal that attaches to its more traditional rival. In (...) this chapter, the author's own view is that the self is indeed a simple substance. The simplicity of the self goes some way toward explaining its unity, including the unity of consciousness that characterizes its normal condition. A divided consciousness is in principle consistent with self‐identity: what is not consistent with this is a radical disunity of beliefs and values, manifested in a radical inconsistency of thought and action. (shrink)

Mental state reasoning or theory-of-mind has been the subject of a rich body of imaging research. Although such investigations routinely tap a common set of regions, the precise function of each area remains a contentious matter. With the help of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we sought to determine which areas are involved when processing mental state or intentional metarepresentations by focusing on the relational aspect of such representations. Using non-intentional relational representations such as spatial relations between persons and between (...) objects as a contrast, the results ascertained the involvement of the precuneus, the temporal poles, and the medial prefrontal cortex in the processing of intentional representations. In contrast, the anterior superior temporal sulcus and the left temporo-parietal junction were implicated when processing representations that refer to the presence of persons in relational contexts in general. The right temporo-parietal junction, however, was specifically activated for persons entering spatial relations. The level of representational complexity, a previously unexplored factor, was also found to modulate the neural response in some brain regions, such as the medial prefrontal cortex and the right temporo-parietal junction. These findings highlight the need to take into account the critical roles played by an extensive network of neural regions during mental state reasoning. (shrink)

An influential thesis in contemporary philosophy of mind is that subjectivity is best conceived as inner awareness of qualia. has argued that this unique subjective awareness generates a paradox which resists empirical explanation. On account of this “paradox of subjective duality,” Levine concludes that the hardest part of the hard problem of consciousness is to explain how anything like a subjective point of view could arise in the world. Against this, I argue that the nature of subjective thought is not (...) correctly characterized as inner awareness, that a non-paradoxical approach to the first-person perspective is available, and that the problem about subjectivity should be distinguished from the perennial problem of qualia or phenomenal properties. (shrink)

Personality and Cognitive Performance The two experiments reported here are concerned with the influence of trait anxiety and other individual differences on cognitive performance using the face-in-the-crowd procedure. Participants completed questionnaires and across two experiments searched for discrepant faces in matrices of otherwise identical faces. The key findings from this study indicated that anxiety enhanced processing efficiency of positive emotional material when interacts with high psychoticism. Additionally, the vigilance for threatening and neutral faces was a characteristic of sanguine individuals with (...) repressive coping while inefficient processing of threatening and neutral stimuli of non-defensive melancholic subjects. These results are discussed with reference to attentional control theory. (shrink)

Purpose. The dynamics and pace of social and economic transformations that are characteristic of modern society, lead to an increase in tension and the destruction of habitual stereotypes – ideals, values, norms, patterns of behaviour that unite people. These moments encourage us to rethink the understanding of "security" essence, in particular, psychological, which emphasizes the urgency of its study in the philosophical and sociocultural coordinates. Theoretical basis of the research is based on the philosophical methodology of K. Jaspers, E. Fromm (...) and the A. Maslow’s psychological approach to understanding of a person. Originality. Psychological security is considered at different levels: first and foremost, society is a characteristic of social security, that is an analysis of how today’s social technologies, social changes affect the quality of life of the country’s population; secondly, the social environment – the family, the immediate environment, reference groups, training teams; thirdly, a person is an experience of his own security-insecurity, when it is possible to talk about the manifestations of psychological violence, when certain behavioral acts contribute to the violation of the security of the other or to self-destruction. It is found out that the knowledge of psychological security is closely connected with the socio-historical conditions of being, with the level of development of material and spiritual culture, with the interests and values prevailing in society, which determines its ontological, epistemological and axiological features. The presented issue is considered in the correlation of psychological security with types of scientific rationality – classical, nonclassical and post-nonclassical approaches, within the framework of which various perspectives, aspects, forms and types of psychological security are studied. Conclusions. The concept of security requires a systematic description of its manifestations, types, levels, concepts: security as the absence of dangers ; security as a certain activity to ensure or to prevent any threats or dangers ; security as a conscious necessity, the value of the individual. The study systematizes various ideas about psychological security in accordance with the logic of scientific knowledge: in the mainstream of classical, non-classical and post-nonclassical approaches. (shrink)

The article addresses the problem of identifying methods to develop the ability of artificial intelligence (AI) systems to provide explanations for their findings. This issue is not new, but, nowadays, the increasing complexity of AI systems is forcing scientists to intensify research in this direction. Modern neural networks contain hundreds of layers of neurons. The number of parameters of these networks reaches trillions, genetic algorithms generate thousands of generations of solutions, and the semantics of AI models become more complicated, going (...) to the quantum and non-local levels. The world’s leading companies are investing heavily in creating explainable AI (XAI). However, the result is still unsatisfactory: a person often cannot understand the “explanations” of AI because the latter makes decisions differently than a person, and perhaps because a good explanation is impossible within the framework of the classical AI paradigm. AI faced a similar problem 40 years ago when expert systems contained only a few hundred logical production rules. The problem was then solved by complicating the logic and building added knowledge bases to explain the conclusions given by AI. At present, other approaches are needed, primarily those that consider the external environment and the subjectivity of AI systems. This work focuses on solving this problem by immersing AI models in the social and economic environment, building ontologies of this environment, taking into account a user profile and creating conditions for purposeful convergence of AI solutions and conclusions to user-friendly goals. (shrink)

We discuss first a "stance" methodology toward the problem of personhood. This is to ask first, what it is to take something to be a person, and then to move via a notion of appropriateness to an answer to what it is to be a person. We argue that the distinctions between persons and non-persons, between agents and patients, and between subjects and mere objects are deeply connected. All three distinctions are themselves traced to a fundamental distinction within the (...) space of reasons -- between, that is, two sorts of material inferential propriety. These two structures of inference are made explicit by indicative and subjunctive conditionals. Tracing personhood to the fundamentally stereoscopic structure of material inference sheds light not only on notions of freedom, agency, and personhood, but on the nature of modal judgments, on the conceptual space of causation, and on the semantics of the explicitating conditionals. We conclude with a pragmatic argument for belief in persons. (shrink)

Traditionally the intentionality of consciousness has been understood as the idea that many conscious states are about something, that they have objects in a broad sense - including states of affairs - which they represent, and it is on account of being representational that they are said to have contents. It has also been claimed, more controversially, that conscious intentional contents must be available to the subject as reasons for her judgments or actions, and that they are therefore necessarily conceptual. (...) This paper challenges the assumptions that all conscious intentional contents are representations of objects, and that they are essentially conceptual. Both assumptions will be shown to be intimately connected. The first main part of the paper offers an account of conscious intentionality that is not prejudicial on the issue of whether all intentional contents of conscious mental states represent objects which the mental state can be said to be about. The author then shows that many personal-level perceptual contents, including those involved in our evaluative stance towards aspects of the world, have non-conceptual components even on a wide construal of the conceptual sphere , allowing for demonstrative concepts. In the second main part of the paper it is argued that experiences themselves, as contrasted with what they are experiences of, are non-conceptual contents. To this purpose the author reconstructs and develops some suggestive observations found in the phenomenology of Husserl to the effect that experiences as directly presented or 'lived through' are not objects of consciousness. It is argued that this thesis, properly understood, is true and that it entails that experiences as directly presented in consciousness are themselves non-conceptual intentional contents. Husserl's thesis is illuminating and important, allowing among other things a more satisfactory account of the elusive phenomenon of depth we normally attribute to the conscious self - the idea that there is always more to our experienced selves at any moment than what we are capable of articulating at the time. (shrink)

This paper replies to the first 36 commentaries on my target article on “Is human information processing conscious?” (Behavioral and Brain Sciences,1991, pp.651-669). The target article focused largely on experimental studies of how consciousness relates to human information processing, tracing their relation from input through to output, while discussion of the implications of the findings both for cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind was relatively brief. The commentaries reversed this emphasis, and so, correspondingly, did the reply. The sequence of topics (...) in the reply roughly follows that of the target article. The discussion begins with a reconsideration of the details of the empirical findings, whether they can be extrapolated to non-laboratory settings, and the extent to which one can rely on their use of subjective reports. This is followed by an in-depth discussion of what is meant by “conscious processing” and of how phenomenal consciousness relates to attentional processing. We then turn to broader philosophical and theoretical issues. I point out some of the reasons why I do not support epiphenomenalism, dualist-interactionism, or reductionism, and elaborate on how first- and third-person views of the mind can be regarded as complementary and mutually irreducible. I suggest how the relation of conscious experiences to their neural correlates can be understood in terms of a dual-aspect theory of information,and how this might be used to resolve some of the paradoxes surrounding the causal interactions of consciousness and brain. I also suggest that, viewed from a first-person perspective, consciousness gives purpose to existence, which allows a different way of viewing its role in evolution. (shrink)

Introduction. Non-institutional humanities, philosophical practice, and informal education are “a family like” phenomena that are outside the social institution of science and education and are adjacent to socio-cultural activities and social work. The purpose of the article is to outline the contours of the informal educational creative industry in the postmodern society, which combines non-institutional humanities, philosophical practice, and informal education. Methods. The author uses the methods of autobiographical reflection, comparative analysis, empirical observation and analysis of the primary sources of (...) non-institutional humanities. Scientific novelty of the research. The transition to nonmaterial work of the postmodern era is the reason for the relevance of the area under study. The growing demand of a contemporary for such issues as the meaning of life, happiness, the growth of the precariat, the ousting of philosophy from formal education constitute a new social reality that determines the novelty of the research in the informal educational creative industry. Results. The author classifies non-institutional humanities according to the spheres of its existence and the strategies of subject genesis presented in the teachings. The concept of dedifferentiation is considered as an explanation of the area under study in postmodernism. The specificity of the philosophical approach in the work of a practicing philosopher is considered. Conclusions. The author connects the prospects of the informal educational creative industry with institutionalization in the way of leisure, entertainment, and other personal services. The author makes conclusions about the differences between formal and informal education, and indicates the risks and opportunities for the development of the informal philosophical sector. (shrink)

Background. Positive schizophrenic symptoms, especially passivity phenomena, including auditory hallucinations, may be caused by an abnormal sense of agency, which people with schizotypal personality traits also tend to exhibit. A sense of agency asserts that it is oneself who is causing or generating an action. It is possible that this abnormal sense of self-agency is attributable to the abnormal prediction of one’s own movements in motor control. Method. We conducted an experiment using the “disappeared cursor” paradigm in which non-clinical, healthy (...) participants were required to click on a target using an invisible mouse cursor. Prediction error was defined as the distance between the target and the click point. Results. The results showed that schizotypal personality traits, but not depressive or anxious traits, were correlated with deficits in predicting movements of the subjects’ left hand. In particular, auditory hallucination proneness had the strongest relationship with movement prediction error. In this report, we also discuss the error tendency. Conclusions. This finding is in accordance with the idea that passivity phenomena or proneness may be caused by the abnormal prediction of one’s own actions or movements. (shrink)

Federal efforts beginning in the 1990's have successfully increased pediatric research to improve medical care for all children. Since 1997, the FDA has requested 800 pediatric studies involving 45,000 children. Much of this research is "non-beneficial"; that is, it exposes pediatric subjects to risk even though these children will not benefit from participating in the research. Non-beneficial pediatric research (NBPR) seems, by definition, contrary to the best interests of pediatric subjects, which is why one state supreme court has (...) essentially prohibited it. It also appears that the only plausible rationale for this research is utilitarian, as it risks some children for the good of all. But that rationale is troubling. This Article answers two related questions: (1) What is the appropriate legal relationship between NBPR and the "best interests of the child" standard? (2) What is the ethical justification for this research? I argue that courts should hold that the "best interests" standard governs pediatric research. But, contrary to existing case law, courts must consider the benefits to each child, including pediatric subjects, from a policy that permits NBPR, and not simply consider that a non-beneficial protocol presents more risk than potential benefit to a child. Moreover, I argue that the justification for the practice need not be utilitarian. There is no need to appeal to the greater good to justify the research because each child has reason to endorse a policy permitting NBPR where there is a very low ceiling on acceptable risk, and each child has reason to participate in a practice from which she benefits. More controversially, I argue that each child, like other persons, has reason to help others when she can do so at little to no cost to herself. The Article then highlights practical implications of the offered justifications. (shrink)

This paper concerns the relationships between persons, brains, behaviour, and psychological explanation. Tye defines a ‘psychological framework’ (PF) as a set of token beliefs, desires, intentions, memories, streams of consciousness, higher-order mental states, etc., that ‘form a coherent whole’ and against which a creature’s ‘behavior can be explained’ (p. 141). A person is the subject of such a psychological framework. Each person has one PF, and with each new PF there is a new person. Meanwhile materialism tells us, according to (...) Tye, that brains are the bearers of mental states. In other words, ‘each person is a brain’ (p. 142) — or rather a ‘global physical state of the brain,’ since Tye believes that a single brain might realize multiple PFs and thus constitute multiple persons. Most of this paper simply assumes Tye’s account of personal identity, in order to expose certain contradictions within what Tye says about personhood in split-brain subjects. Towards the end of the paper, however, I turn to alternative accounts of persons. While a method of individuating persons grounded in scientific psychology would identify persons with psychological frameworks, as Tye does, perhaps an account of personhood grounded either in a non-psychological science, or in non-scientific psychology, would better fit the interests we have in personal identity. (shrink)

First it will be necessary to examine the argument, and the meaning of the argument, by which Mr. Ingram-Pearson is led to uphold such an unusual position. Using the statement, "fairies do not exist," as his example, he observes: "In order to achieve its obvious status as a denial this statement must have some object of reference for its subject term; for denials which are denials of nothing are not denials in any sense at all." What, then, is the designate (...) of the term "fairies"? It is, we are told, "an existent [italics mine] which at least one person believes to be present in the world and which another person at the same time and in the same context believes is not there." To say that "fairies do not exist" is therefore to say that "certain entities, designated by the term 'fairies,' are not present in the world," or "specific entities, designated by the term 'fairies,' are really absent from the world." The latter statement is positive, and Mr. Ingram-Pearson tells us explicitly that positive statements cannot "succeed in making intelligible" something made intelligible by negative statements about non-existents; but he has in mind such "ordinary" positive statements as "fairies are imagined beings." In other words, it is not that negative statements about. (shrink)

This Article is a contribution to the torture debate. It argues that the abusive interrogation tactics used by the United States in what was then called the “global war on terrorism” are, unequivocally, torture under U.S. law. To some readers, this might sound like déjà vu all over again. Hasn’t this issue been picked over for nearly fifteen years? It has, but we think the legal analysis we offer has been mostly overlooked. We argue that the basic character of the (...) CIA’s interrogation of so-called “high-value detainees” has been misunderstood: both lawyers and commentators have placed far too much emphasis on the dozen or so “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) short-listed in government “torture memos,” and far too little emphasis on other forms of physical violence, psychological stressors, environmental manipulations, and abusive conditions of confinement that are crucial to the question of whether the detainees were tortured. Furthermore, we dispute one of the standard narratives about the origins of the program: that it was the brainchild of civilian contractor psychologists because— in the CIA’s words—“[n]on-standard interrogation methodologies were not an area of expertise of CIA officers or of the US Government generally.” This narrative ignores the CIA’s role in devising these methods, in spite of the decades of prior CIA research and doctrine about forcing interrogation subjects into a state of extreme psychological debilitation, and about how to do so—by making them physically weak, intensely fearful and anxious, and helplessly dependent. By neglecting this history and focusing on the contractors and the EITs they devised, this narrative contributes to the misunderstanding that the torture debate is about EITs and nothing else. In effect, a “torture debate” about EITs and the torture memos neglects the purloined letter in front of our eyes: the abusive conditions the CIA inflicted on prisoners even when they were not subject to EITs, including abuses that the torture memos never bothered to discuss. Unpacking what this debate is really about turns out to be crucial to understanding that such interrogation methods are torture under existing U.S. law. The U.S. Torture Act includes a clause in its definition of mental torture that was intended to ban exactly the kind of interrogation methods the CIA had researched, out of concern that our Cold War adversaries were using them: mind-altering procedures “calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality.” That is precisely the “non-standard interrogation methodology” the CIA employed after 9/11. (shrink)

Four non-Cartesian conceptions of a person are considered. I argue tor one of these, a position called animalism. I reject the idea that a (human) person coincides with, but is numerically distinct from, a certain human animal. Coinciding physical beings would both be psychological subjects. I argue that such subjects could not engage in self-reference. Since self-reference (or the capacity tor self-reference) is a necessary condition for being a person, no physical subject coincident with another such subject can (...) be a person. I take all of this to support the view that we (human persons) are identical with human animals. (shrink)

Humanism in business is not only an alternative to economism but a way to human excellence. Humanism presented here revolves around the rich notion of “human person”, keystone of modern personalist philosophy and Catholic Social Teaching. From this perspective this book is offered to everyone, believer and nonbeliever alike. The person-centered humanism considers the human-wholeness, individual and relational, with subjectivity, self-determination, openness to transcendence, and with capacity not only to possess but also to give. It also highlights the uniqueness of (...) each person, endowed with a high constitutive dignity and in continuous process of flourishing toward human plenitude. An attitude of respect and good will is due to non-personal beings, while persons deserve to be treated with justice and even with love of benevolence. The book is prepared in dialogue with mainstream of thought in business and business ethics and focused on exploring ways to improve some conventional views. It includes some proposals such as a person-based ethics, ethics understood as intrinsic to business activity, the consideration of the company as an organized community of persons, and the purpose of the company oriented toward the common good through a double mission, internal and external. It is also suggested substituting the notion of “stakeholder” for the richer one of “relationholder.”. (shrink)

That in Gettier's alleged counterexamples to the traditional analysis of knowledge as justified true belief the belief condition is satisfied has rarely been questioned. Yet there is reason to doubt that a rational person would come to believe what Gettier's protagonists are said to believe in the way they are said to have come to believe it. If they would not, the examples are not counter-examples to the traditional analysis. I go on to discuss a number of examples inspired by (...) Gettier's and argue that they, too, fail to be counter-examples either for reasons similar to those I have urged or because it is not clear that their subject does not know. (shrink)

Personal space is the distance that people tend to maintain from others during daily life in a largely unconscious manner. For humans, personal space-related behaviors represent one form of non-verbal social communication, similar to facial expressions and eye contact. Given that the changes in social behavior and experiences that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, including “social distancing” and widespread social isolation, may have altered personal space preferences, we investigated this possibility in two independent samples. First, we compared (...) the size of personal space measured before the onset of the pandemic to its size during the pandemic in separate groups of subjects. Personal space size was significantly larger in those assessed during the onset of the pandemic. Lastly, we found that the practice of social distancing and perceived risk of being infected with COVID-19 were linked to this personal space enlargement during the pandemic. Taken together, these findings suggest that personal space boundaries expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic independent of actual infection risk level. As the day-to-day effects of the pandemic subside, personal space preferences may provide one index of recovery from the psychological effects of this crisis. (shrink)

More and more research reports assert that sport experience has an influence on shaping the personality of athletes. This paper aims at validating the connection between personality and sport experience. The research subject of were young Polish male athletes aged 20–29, out of 42 sports disciplines, with sport experience ranging from 3 to 12 years. In order to test the personality of the research subjects, a five-factor model of personality called the Big Five was applied. Statistical calculations and analyses (...) were carried out with ver. 25 of the IBM SPSS Statistics software. The research has shown that all personality traits correlate in a statistically significant way with sport experience : there is a negative correlation of sports experience with neuroticism and a positive correlation with traits such as extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Thus, we have identified a relationship between sport experience and personality traits of the researched Polish male athletes—the longer the sport experience, the lower level of neuroticism and higher levels of extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Duration of sport experience has a considerable influence on forming the personality of Polish male athletes. However, the interpretation of just the results regarding high level of extraversion and conscientiousness distinguishes Polish male athletes from the Polish male population of non-training people. (shrink)