On the evolution of mind Harry J. Jerison Most of us think of mind as a little person in the head, the 'knower' of reality (cf. Attneave,). ...

Despite the compelling subjective experience of executive self-control, we argue that ‘consciousness’ contains no top-down control processes. We propose that ‘consciousness’ involves no executive, causal or controlling relationship with any of the familiar psychological processes conventionally attributed to it. In our view all psychological processing and psychological products are non-conscious. In particular, we argue that all ‘contents of consciousness’ are generated by and within non-conscious brain systems in the form of a continuous self-referential personal narrative that is not directed or (...) influenced in any way by the ‘experience of consciousness’. This continuously updated personal narrative arises from selective ‘internal broadcasting’ of outputs from non-conscious executive systems that have access to all forms of cognitive processing, sensory information and motor control. The personal narrative provides information for storage in autobiographical memory and is underpinned by constructs of self and agency, also created in non-conscious systems. The experience of consciousness, is seen as a passive accompaniment to the non-conscious processes of internal broadcasting and the creation of the personal narrative. In this sense personal awareness is analogous to the rainbow which accompanies physical processes in the atmosphere but exerts no influence over them. Though at an individual level it is an end-product created by non-conscious executive systems, the personal narrative serves the powerful evolutionary function of enabling individuals to communicate (externally broadcast) the contents of internal broadcasting. This in turn allows the recipients to generate potentially adaptive strategies, such as predicting the behavior of others and underlies the development of social and cultural structures, that promote species survival. Consequently, it is the capacity to communicate to others the contents of the personal narrative that confers an evolutionary advantage – not the experience of consciousness (personal awareness) itself. (shrink)

The demonstration that hypnotic suggestion can inhibit word/colour Stroop highlights one of the benefits of using hypnosis to explore cognitive psychology and in particular attentional processes. The compelling results using a rigorous design have particular relevance for the presumed automaticity of some forms of information processing. Moreover the results support the potential that hypnotic suggestion offers for creating clinically informed analogues of relevant psychological and neuropsychological conditions. As with all novel research, the results of Raz and Campbell raise further operational (...) and theoretical questions, relating in this case to the use of hypnotic, post-hypnotic and non-hypnotic suggestion and the utility of existing measures of hypnotizability. (shrink)

Hypnosis is associated with profound changes in conscious experience and is increasingly used as a cognitive tool to explore neuropsychological processes. Studies of this sort typically employ suggestions following a hypnotic induction to produce changes in perceptual experience and motor control. It is not clear, however, to what extent the induction procedure serves to facilitate suggested phenomena. This study investigated the effect on suggestibility of a hypnotic induction and labelling that procedure ‘hypnosis.’ Suggestibility of participants was tested before and after (...) an adapted hypnotic procedure, which was either labelled as ‘hypnosis’ or as ‘relaxation.’ The hypnotic procedure produced a modest increase in suggestibility when it was called ‘relaxation,’ but a very significant increase if it was labelled ‘hypnosis.’ The results are important for both clinical and experimental applications and indicate that labelling an induction procedure ‘hypnosis’ is an important determinant of subsequent responses to suggestion. (shrink)

It has always concentrated upon man, and usually the comparative approach has not been used to study the evolution of behaviour, but in the hope that ...

Consciousness as used here, refers to the private, subjective experience of being aware of our perceptions, thoughts, feelings, actions, memories including the intimate experience of a unified self with the capacity to generate and control actions and psychological contents. This compelling, intuitive consciousness-centric account has, and continues to shape folk and scientific accounts of psychology and human behavior. Over the last 30 years, research from the cognitive neurosciences has challenged this intuitive social construct account when providing a neurocognitive architecture for (...) a human psychology. Growing evidence suggests that the executive functions typically attributed to the experience of consciousness are carried out competently, backstage and outside subjective awareness by a myriad of fast, efficient non-conscious brain systems. While it remains unclear how and where the experience of consciousness is generated in the brain, we suggested that the traditional intuitive explanation that consciousness is causally efficacious is wrong-headed when providing a cognitive neuroscientific account of human psychology. Notwithstanding the compelling 1st-person experience that convinces us that subjective awareness is the mental curator of our actions and thoughts, we argue that the best framework for building a scientific account is to be consistent with the biophysical causal dependency of prior neural processes. From a 3rd person perspective,, we propose that subjective awareness lacking causal influence, is than our experience of being aware, our awareness of our psychological content, knowing that we are aware, and the belief that that such experiences are evidence of an agentive capacity shared by others. While the human mind can be described as comprising both conscious and nonconscious aspects, both ultimately depend on neural process in the brain. In arguing for the counter-intuitive epiphenomenal perspective, we suggest that a scientific approach considers all mental aspects of mind including consciousness in terms of their underlying, preceding biological changes, in the realization that most brain processes are not accompanied by any discernible change in subjective awareness. (shrink)

Following a hypnotic amnesia suggestion, highly hypnotically suggestible subjects may experience amnesia for events. Is there a failure to retrieve the material concerned from autobiographical memory, or is it retrieved but blocked from consciousness? Highly hypnotically suggestible subjects produced free-associates to a list of concrete nouns. They were then given an amnesia suggestion for that episode followed by another free association list, which included 15 critical words that had been previously presented. If episodic retrieval for the first trial had been (...) blocked, the responses on the second trial should still have been at least as fast as for the first trial. With semantic priming, they should be faster. In fact, they were on average half a second slower. This suggests that the material had been retrieved but blocked from consciousness. A goal-oriented information processing framework is outlined to interpret these and related data. (shrink)

The conscious feeling of exercising ‘free-will’ is fundamental to our sense of self. However, in some psychopathological conditions actions may be experienced as involuntary or unwilled. We have used suggestion in hypnosis to create the experience of involuntariness in normal participants. We compared a voluntary finger movement, a passive movement and a voluntary movement suggested by hypnosis to be ‘involuntary.’ Hypnosis itself had no effect on the subjective experience of voluntariness associated with willed movements and passive movements or on time (...) estimations of their occurrence. However, subjective time estimates of a hypnotically-suggested, ‘involuntary’ finger movement were more similar to those for passive movements than for voluntary movements. The experience of anomalous control is qualitatively and quantitatively different from the normal conscious experience of a similar act produced intentionally. The experience of anomalous control may be produced either by pathology, or, in our case, by suggestion. (shrink)

Pathological Altruism presents a number of new, thought-provoking theses that explore a range of hurtful effects of altruism and empathy.

In his justifiedly famous paper, “Elusive Knowledge” (Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 74:4, 1996), David Lewis presents a contextualist account of knowledge, which, like other contextualist accounts, depicts sceptical claims as involving application of a higher standard of knowledge than is applied in everyday ascriptions of knowledge. On Lewis’ account, the sceptic’s denials and the everyday ascriptions are made in different contexts, which allows them both to be true. His account gives detailed specification of how contexts are to be determined. (...) My paper points out that this view is unattractive to the sceptic, since it makes scepticism, even if true, completely disconnected from and irrelevant to the rest of our cognitive discourse. After arguing that the sceptic’s own ascriptions of knowledge (made outside the philosophy seminar room) can be explained in non-contextualist ways, I expound and criticise Lewis’ analysis of knowledge, taking up in particular a central component of his account, the “Rule of Attention”. In the central part of the paper I argue that the reasons given for the inclusion of the rule are all inadequate, and also that there are positive reasons for rejecting it. The final section of the paper argues that the excision of the Rule of Attention removed would leave Lewis’ account subject to serious counter- examples. (shrink)

Helen Beebee has recently argued that David Lewis’s account of compatibilism, so-called local miracle compatibilism, allows for the possibility that agents in deterministic worlds have the ability to break or cause the breaking of a law of nature. Because Lewis’s LMC allows for this consequence, Beebee claims that LMC is untenable and subsequently that Lewis’s criticism of van Inwagen’s Consequence Argument for incompatibilism is substantially weakened. I review Beebee’s argument against Lewis’s thesis and argue that Beebee has not refuted (...) LMC and concomitantly has not demonstrated that Lewis’s criticism of the Consequence Argument fails. (shrink)

Epistemic infinitism, advanced in different forms by Peter Klein, Scott Aikin, and David Atkinson and Jeanne Peijnenburg, is the theory that justification of a proposition for a person requires the availability to that person of an infinite, non-repeating chain of propositions, each providing a justifying reason for its successor in the chain. The reductio argument is the argument to the effect that infinitism has the consequence that no one is justified in any proposition, because there will be an infinite (...) chain of reasons supporting any proposition (and similarly, a chain supporting its negation). Four ways of defending infinitism against the reductio argument are considered and found wanting: Peijnenburg and Atkinson’s use of probabilistic chains of reasons; Klein’s concept of emergent justification; Aikin’s insistence that there be non-propositional input in the justification of any proposition; and Klein’s use of the distinction between reasons that are and are not available to a person. I contend that, in the absence of some further defence, the reductio argument makes infinitism untenable. (shrink)

Developing original accounts of the many aspects of belief, On Believing puts the believer at the heart of the story. Developing a novel account of the normativity of belief, Hunter argues that the ethics of belief concern how a believer ought to be positioned in a world of possibilities.

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Basic Human Rights: Rawls's List Basic Human Rights: Their Nature and Function Basic Human Rights: A Rawlsian Justification Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes.

Today's social and political climate often pits conservative or traditional Christianity against "progressive" Christianity. But what is progressive Christianity? What is a progressive Christian? What is a progressive church? Christianity in Blue answers these questions by drawing from biblical scholarship, Christian history, theology, popular culture, philosophy, and cultural anthropology. Kaden shows how socially liberal values and progressive attitudes can be the fruits of taking seriously both the Bible and Christian tradition. But rather than treating these sources as static authorities and (...) the final word on every subject, Kaden argues that they are places to start one's exploration of how to be a Christian in the world. Being a progressive Christian is an ethical exhortation to "uplift human personality," as Martin Luther King Jr. once said. This exhortation structures how progressive Christians receive, interpret, and apply the Bible and Christian tradition to daily life. A robust tradition provides an anchor to avoid the illiberal trends in contemporary society, and a commitment to uplifting human personality provides a check against dehumanizing uses of Scripture and tradition. Christianity in Blue will help both progressive and conservative Christians better understand the importance of the Bible, theology, history, and philosophy for building a loving church for everyone. (shrink)

How do we know when we are investing wisely in security? Answering this question requires investigating what things are worth securing (and why); what threatens them; how best to protect them; and how to think about it. Is it possible to protect them? How best go about protecting them? What trade-offs are involved in allocating resources to security problems? This book responds to these questions by stripping down our preconceptions and rebuilding an understanding of security from the ground up on (...) the basis of a common-sense ontology and an explicit theory of value. It argues for a clear distinction between objective and subjective security threats, a non-anthropocentric understanding of security, and a particular hierarchy of security referents, looking closely at four in particular-the ecosphere, the state, culture, and individual human beings. The analysis will be of interest not only to students and scholars of International Relations, but also to practitioners. David A. Welch is University Research Chair and Professor of Political Science at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, University of Waterloo. His previous books include Justice and the Genesis of War (Cambridge University Press, 1993), which won the 1994 Edgar S. Furniss Award for an Outstanding Contribution to National Security Studies, and Painful Choices: A Theory of Foreign Policy Change (2005), which was the inaugural winner of the International Studies Association International Security Studies Section Best Book Award. He is currently co-editor of the Cambridge University Press journal, International Theory. (shrink)

This response outlines more reasons why we need the integrative framework of grandparental investments and intergenerational transfers that we advocated in the target article. We discusses obstacles that stand in the way of such a framework and of a better understanding of the effects of grandparenting in the developed world. We highlight new research directions that have emerged from the commentaries, and we end by discussing some of the things in our target article about which we may have been wrong.

This carefully-researched book offers a dynamic and expansive Deweyan vision for the arts and education. This (re)vision acknowledges the influence on Dewey's aesthetics of art collector and educator Albert Barnes, while also exploring the various ways Dewey's writings on the arts, in moving beyond Barnes' "scientific aesthetic method," were an important resource for many innovative twentieth-century American artists, art movements, and arts-related educational institutions. Neither Barnes' influence on Dewey nor the features of Dewey's naturalistic aesthetics that made his Art as (...) Experience a favorite text of many artists and arts practitioners have been fully and adequately acknowledged in existing literature on Dewey's thinking about the arts and education. This book effectively remedies that situation. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article propose une analyse «habermasienne» du fait de dire des conneries qui diffère de l’approche bien connue de Harry Frankfurt. Il y est question de démontrer que la théorie de l’agir communicationnel d’Habermas fournit de meilleurs outils conceptuels pour une telle analyse. Il sera également démontré que les partisans d’Habermas devraient être préoccupés par ce phénomène. Déconner perturbe la transition au discours; elle interrompt la force liante de l’agir communicationnel (qui est à la base de l’explication d’Habermas sur (...) l’intégration sociale) et, suffisamment répandu pour en altérer les attitudes fondamentales à l’égard du discours public, le déconnage met en question le statut de la théorie de l’agir communicationnel d’Habermas comme une reconstruction de la connaissance intuitive des locuteurs compétents. (shrink)

David A. J. Richards's Resisting Injustice and The Feminist Ethics of Care in The Age of Obama: Suddenly,...All The Truth Was Coming Out examines the roots of the resistance movements of the 1960s, the political psychology behind contemporary conservatism, and President Obama's present-day appeal as well as the reasons for the reactionary politics against him. This book positions recent American political development in a broad analysis of the role of patriarchy in human oppression throughout history, and argues that a (...) feminist-based ethics of care is necessary to form a more humane and inclusive democratic politics. (shrink)

Some recent views of action have claimed that a correct conceptual account of action must include second-order motivational states. This follows from the fact that first-order motivational states such as desires account for action or mere behavior in which the agent's participation is lacking; thus, first-order motivational states cannot by themselves account for action in which the agent participates, so-called full-blooded action. I argue that representing the agent's participation by means of second-order states is bound to fail because it misrepresents (...) what an agent is doing when acting in the full-blooded sense. I begin by characterizing full-blooded action and explaining the failure of first-order accounts to explain it. I next show that while second-order accounts have some success in explaining full-blooded action, they fail to distinguish it from action which exhibits motivational alienation. I then argue that even if this problem were resolved, the second-order accounts more fundamentally misrepresent full-blooded action by depicting such action in an introverted manner. I conclude by considering a sketch of agency and full-blooded action that does not rely on second-order states and by addressing a primary concern thought to favor the second-order accounts, the concern of agent causation. (shrink)

Engaging, interdisciplinary work exploring the influence of the Jansenist tradition on Alexis de Tocqueville's life and works. The most comprehensive treatment of the subject to date.

_Reinvigorates Jürgen Habermas’ early critical theory._.

Reinvigorates J rgen Habermas' early critical theory.

This essay that takes up Rawls's journey from philosophical theology through moral philosophy to democratic theory and political philosophy and pauses at, to reflect on, a few significant points early in the journey. It aims to provide a sense of some of Rawls's important early concerns and commitments that structure or at least cast significant shadows over his later work in political philosophy, A Theory of Justice and subsequent works. According to Rawl, moral philosophers construct theoretical models to explain and (...) predict familiar, everyday, noncontroversially competent moral judgments. Rawls refers to this work as “explication” and “ethics as science.” Rawls distinguishes between two tasks essential to moral philosophy. Ethical theory or moral theory starts with but takes us beyond ethics as science by helping us to refine and deepen our understanding of plausible candidate explications. (shrink)

From _atavistic_ to _folie a deux_, from _engram_ to _Weltschmerz_ and _Seashore test_, this edition of _The Concise Dictionary of Psychology_ contains more than 1,300 references to words, phrases and eminent pioneers in psychology. Updated to take account of recent developments, each definition is clear, instructive and concise. A lean and efficient source of information, written in a straightforward and readable manner, this book will be an indispensable reference tool for students of psychology, for professionals and for people in the (...) health and caring professions. (shrink)

This insightful book sheds light on three competing ideological windows on the world: conservatism, liberalism and socialism. David Reisman explores the importance of these perspectives not only to generating public policy, but also in our capacity to explain the very nature of reality.

Our sense of self includes awareness of our thoughts and movements, and our control over them. This feeling can be altered or lost in neuropsychiatric disorders as well as in phenomena such as “automatic writing” whereby writing is attributed to an external source. Here, we employed suggestion in highly hypnotically suggestible participants to model various experiences of automatic writing during a sentence completion task. Results showed that the induction of hypnosis, without additional suggestion, was associated with a small but significant (...) reduction of control, ownership, and awareness for writing. Targeted suggestions produced a double dissociation between thought and movement components of writing, for both feelings of control and ownership, and additionally, reduced awareness of writing. Overall, suggestion produced selective alterations in the control, ownership, and awareness of thought and motor components of writing, thus enabling key aspects of automatic writing, observed across different clinical and cultural settings, to be modelled. (shrink)

How do we identify the "queer auteur" and their queer imaginings? Is it possible to account for such a figure when the very terms "queer" and "auteur" invoke aesthetic surprises and disorientations, disconcerting ironies and paradoxes, and biographical deceits and ambiguities? David A. Gerstner traces a history of ideas that spotlight an ever-shifting terrain associated with auteur theory and, in particular, queer-auteur theory. Engaging with the likes of Oscar Wilde, Walter Benjamin, James Baldwin, Jean Louis Baudry, Linda Nochlin, Jane (...) Gallop, Cáel Keegan, Luce Irigaray, and other prominent critical thinkers, Gerstner contemplates how the queer auteur in film theory might open us to the work of desire. Ultimately, Queer Imaginings is a journey in shared pleasures in which writing for and about cinema makes way for unanticipated cinematic friendships."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

'Trade in Health is a timely reflection on the interface of economics with the ethics and public policy facets of the international movement of patients. Health issues such as these are at the forefront of modern political economy."National" health is increasingly less so. Reisman's previous scholarship in this area is brought to bear in an insightful and eminently readable and engaging fashion. In an area where uncovering the facts is more difficult than "decyphering the Dead Sea Scrolls", such a reflective (...) work on the critical aspects of political economy helps to fill a void in considering whether such trade is likely to be in the interests of patients, nations and the global community. In addition to the rosy picture of healthy and wealthy tourists having a sojourn for medical care during a vacation, Reisman is not afraid to tackle the thorny issues concerning trade in organs, eggs and even death, in this sobering and comprehensive volume. It is a rare skill to bring the luminaries of Smith, Marshall, Mill and Confucius to bear on such a contemporary tale! International travel by patients is at the nexus of a revolution in global health. It is driving and affecting aspects of foreign investment, health worker migration and e-health provision. Reisman skilfully links these foundations of health care, and as such provides critical text for consideration by those seeking to build and strengthen future health systems. Trade in Health is an excellent overview. It provides critical insights for those new to the area as well as new information and challenges for those of us involved for a number of years.' - Richard Smith, Professor of Health Ssytem Economics and Dean of Faculty of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK. Once exports and imports meant agriculture and industry. In the global economy and the electronic age, trade is also expanding into the service sector. This timely book closely examines trade in health. It documents the growth of a cross-national service that in the past was mainly consumed at home. Following from his highly successful book Health Tourism, Professor David Reisman offers a comprehensive and searching multidisciplinary account of the way in which medical services, patients, capital and professionals are making up a global healthcare economy that crosses borders. He reflects on their pursuit of lower prices, better quality and a differentiated product, and suggests that public policy is essential if the ethical capital of interdependent societies is not to be eroded by the international market in health and care. Written in a concise and lucid form, this original book will be of great interest to all people interested in the internationalization of health care. Combining theory and empirical evidence from economics, tourism and medical care, scholars involved in health policy and social administration will find much of significance in this authoritative study. (shrink)

Arguing about origins' great theater and a grand distraction -- Ideas and idea making -- Beauty and the arts -- Suffering and sensation -- The justice paradox -- Life and afterlife.

In the twenty-first century, the debate about life on other worlds is quickly changing from the realm of speculation to the domain of hard science. Within a few years, as a consequence of the rapid discovery by astronomers of planets around other stars, astronomers very likely will have discovered clear evidence of life beyond the Earth. Such a discovery of extraterrestrial life will change everything. Knowing the answer as to whether humanity has company in the universe will trigger one of (...) the greatest intellectual revolutions in history, not the least of which will be a challenge for at least some terrestrial religions. Which religions will handle the discovery of extraterrestrial life with ease and which will struggle to assimilate this new knowledge about our place in the universe? Some religions as currently practiced appear to only be viable on Earth. Other religions could be practiced on distant worlds but nevertheless identify both Earth as a place and humankind as a species of singular spiritual religious importance, while some religions could be practiced equally well anywhere in the universe by any sentient beings. Weintraub guides readers on an invigorating tour of the world's most widely practiced religions. It reveals what, if anything, each religion has to say about the possibility that extraterrestrial life exists and how, or if, a particular religion would work on other planets in distant parts of the universe. (shrink)