Most readers will agree with the starting assumptions of Klee that contemporary science and philosophy assume a primarily micro-deterministic view of nature–and that this has long been the case, or was at least until the 1970s. Defending a strict micro-determinism, Klee argues that concepts of emergence that seemingly are opposed to micro-determinist doctrine can be shown, on analysis, to be ultimately consistent with a thoroughgoing philosophy of micro-determinism. An exception is made, however, in the case of my own view, labeled (...) “direct macro-determinism,” which he describes as “ultimately more troublesome” but then disposes of as being based on “simplistic analogies” and “metaphors” and “too weak to be conclusive.”. (shrink)

Weaknesses in Roger Sperry's "Defense of Mentalism" that appeared in the Spring issue of JMB are described. Sperry's clarification of his mentalist position still appears to lack a plausible mechanism of interaction. The wheel rolling down hill analogy is described as "a ghost in the subcircuitry." Neurological Positivism's energetic mechanism of brain-mind interaction is summarized. The relatioship of systems theory to reductionism is described briefly in terms of NP.

Possible measurement and testability weaknesses in Sperry's mind-supervenient emergent interactionism "argument by analogy" model are described. An alternative brain-supervenient interactionism that addresses the weaknesses of Sperry's mind-brain model is presented. The alternative model, Neurological Positivism - a systems-theoretical evolutionary epistemology - proposes that the measurable energy quality of the algorithmic organization of the Darwinian brain supervenes that of cultural mental models and thus downwardly influences the brain circuitry patterns that underlie them. Brain and mind are defined in interrelated energy terms (...) within the context of the self-referential maximum-power principle. The equivalence of maximum-power principle energy hierarchies to chaotic/fractal dynamical designs is described. The production of mental models through reflective thinking is defined as an emergent dimension of energetic self-referencing by the brain operating in accordance with the maximum-power principle. It is concluded that within the context of NP the brain-mind relationship constitutes an "uneven" central state energy identity, with brain supervenient, when brain-mind relative energy qualities are taken into account. (shrink)

This paper explores R. W. Sperry's view that consciousness is ?causally? effective in directing voluntary human behaviour. This view, formulated in the course of his split brain research, presupposes an earlier theory that motor behaviour is the sole output of the brain and that mental phenomena were developed for regulation of overt response. His view of the ?causal? effectiveness of consciousness is shown to be based on a theory of emergent properties like that of Bunge. It is also shown that (...) Sperry, like Bunge, is a materialist; appearances to the contrary are due to occasional use of standard terms such as ?materialism? and ?interaction? in unusual senses. It is argued, with specific reference to Chisholm and Searle, that Sperry's hypothesis is helpful towards elucidating the structure and dynamics of action. It is also argued that it is not, as Sperry thinks, a consequence of his position that moral values are part of brain science. (shrink)

This article offers a feminist perspective on public sociology that suggests that the potential risks of going public with feminist sociological research are more pervasive and serious than proponents of public sociologies have previously acknowledged. At the same time, the promise of public sociologies for furthering feminist goals has been largely untapped. Here, the authors recount their own experience with widely publicized research that, while neither unique nor typical, serves to highlight potential risks of making feminist sociological research public. Feminist (...) scholars must be made aware of these risks as feminist research, which challenges existing gender inequalities and arrangements, is especially likely to encounter negative public reaction. The authors recommend collective and conscientious attention to both the medium and the message. The perspective on public sociologies presented here can help further the goals of public sociology and holds special promise for feminist sociologists who seek effective ways to promote social change. (shrink)

In this chapter, the author explains Rorty's neopragmatist feminism and some feminist criticism of his work, limiting her to questions not yet settled in the literature. She argues that Rorty can defeat the criticisms that his reformism is too conservative and that his feminism flounders without representationalist truth. "Feminism and Pragmatism" discusses the apparent paradox that injustices, on a Rortyan view, are not injustices until they are so perceived. Thus, if our society begins to accept gay marriage, passes legislation supporting (...) gay marriage, and begins criticizing those who oppose gay marriage, we have made a significant change in our practices, norms, and language. Our society still, at least at this time, thinks of "gay marriage" as a somewhat different category than "marriage," despite the fact that we treat both as marriages. We still rely on legislatures and courts to determine the legality of our marriage practices. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 This paper builds upon an essay I published in Cosmos and History in June of 2014, in which nonexistence is seen as the engine, axis and source of existence. 1 Here I propose a speculative bottom-up theory of everything originating from nothing, including how top-down theories, such as general relativity and quantum mechanics, might approximate my instinct. I share how any one can intuitively experience scientific theories. Normal 0 false false false (...) EN-US X-NONE X-NONE. (shrink)

Women are underrepresented in the upper echelons of management in most countries. Despite the effectiveness of identity conscious initiatives for increasing the proportion of women, many organizations have been reluctant to implement such initiatives because potential employees may perceive them negatively. Given the increasing competition for labor, attracting talent is relevant for the long-term success of organizations. In this study, we used an experimental design to examine the effects of identity blind and identity conscious gender diversity initiatives on people’s pursuit (...) intentions toward organizations using them. We used counterfactual thinking, derived from fairness theory, as a guiding framework for our hypothesis development and investigated the moderating influence of a forthcoming government-mandated gender quota as well as individual characteristics. Participants reviewed statements regarding workplace diversity initiatives and rated either the initiatives’ effectiveness or indicated their intentions to pursue employment with organizations using them. Of those rating pursuit intentions, half were informed that the country in which they were conducting their job search was about to implement gender quotas. Results indicated a diversity management paradox such that initiatives perceived as more effective made organizations using them less attractive as employers. However, these negative perceptions were mitigated by a government-mandated quota, and also lower among women. Implications for the study and practice of diversity are discussed. (shrink)

Although establishing gender equality in board and managerial positions has recently become more important for organizations, companies with low levels of gender diversity seem to perceive an ethical dilemma regarding the ways, in which they attempt to attain it. One way that organizations try to move toward gender equality is through the use of their corporate websites to manage potential applicants’ impressions of their current levels of, and actions to improve, gender diversity. The dilemma is whether to truthfully communicate their (...) low level of gender diversity, conceal it, or exaggerate it. On the one hand, organizations that are truthful may find it difficult to achieve equality because women are less attracted to companies that lack diversity. On the other hand, organizations that are untruthful risk their moral legitimacy. The present work investigates gender diversity-related communication on the corporate websites of 99 major German companies. Based on theoretical work on minority attraction, we apply an organizational impression management taxonomy to guide our in-depth content analysis. With this approach, we hope to advance the understanding of how the issue of gender diversity is presented on corporate websites, which is useful for both organizational decision makers as well as diversity researchers. We found that although gender diversity-related communications on corporate websites contain both assertive and defensive organizational impression management tactics, as well as a third type of tactic we refer to as “acknowledgement,” assertive tactics were used more frequently. We argue the existence of a paradox whereby organizations use assertive impression management tactics to maintain pragmatic legitimacy but compromise their moral legitimacy by doing so. Furthermore, we argue that moral legitimacy can be maintained or restored through the sincere use of defensive impression management tactics and acknowledgement. (shrink)

"Williams's masterful translation satisfies (at last!) a long-standing need. There are lots of good translations of Augustine's great work, but until now we have been forced to choose between those that strive to replicate in English something of the majesty and beauty of Augustine's Latin style and those that opt instead to convey the careful precision of his philosophical terminology and argumentation. Finally, Williams has succeeded in capturing both sides of Augustine's mind in a richly evocative, impeccably reliable, elegantly readable (...) presentation of one of the most impressive achievements in Western thought--Augustine's Confessions." --Scott MacDonald, Professor of Philosophy and Norma K. Regan Professor in Christian Studies, Cornell University. (shrink)

The mentalist mind-brain model is defended against alleged weaknesses. I argue that the perceived failings are based mostly on misinterpretation of mentalism and emergent interaction. Considering the paradigmatic concepts at issue and broad implications, I try to better clarify the misread mentalist view, adding more inclusive detail, relevant background, further analysis, and comparing its foundational concepts with those of the new cognitive paradigm in psychology. A changed "emergent interactionist" form of causation is posited that combines traditional microdeterminism with emergent "top-down" (...) control. This emergent form of causation has wide application to causal explanation in general and is hypothesized to be the key common precursor for the consciousness revolution and subsequent boom in new worldviews, "systems thinking," emerging new paradigms, and other transformative developments of the 1970s and 1980s. (shrink)

BackgroundParanoia is associated with a multitude of social cognitive deficits, observed in both clinical and subclinical populations. Empathy is significantly and broadly impaired in schizophrenia, yet its relationship with subclinical paranoia is poorly understood. Furthermore, deficits in emotion recognition – a very early component of empathic processing – are present in both clinical and subclinical paranoia. Deficits in emotion recognition may therefore underlie relationships between paranoia and empathic processing. The current investigation aims to add to the literature on social cognition (...) and paranoia by: characterizing the relationship between paranoia and empathy, and testing whether there is an indirect effect of emotion recognition on the relationship between empathy and paranoia.MethodsParanoia, empathy, and emotion recognition were assessed in a non-clinical sample of adults from the Nathan Kline Institute-Rockland dataset. Paranoia was measured using the Peters Delusions Inventory-21. Empathy was measured using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, a self-report instrument designed to assess empathy using four subscales: Personal Distress, Empathic Concern, Perspective Taking, and Fantasy. Emotion recognition was assessed using the Penn Emotion Recognition Test. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate relationships between paranoia, the four measures of empathy and emotion recognition.ResultsParanoia was associated with the Fantasy subscale of the IRI, such that higher Fantasy was associated with more severe paranoia. No other empathy subscales were associated with paranoia. Fantasy was also associated with the emotion recognition of fear, such that higher Fantasy was correlated with better recognition of fear. Paranoia and emotion recognition were not significantly associated. The Empathic Concern subscale was negatively associated with emotion recognition, with higher empathic concern related to worse overall emotion recognition. All indirect paths through emotion recognition were non-significant.DiscussionThese results suggest that imaginative perspective-taking contributes to paranoia in the general population. These data do not, however, point to robust global relationships between empathy and paranoia or to emotion recognition as an underlying mechanism. Deficits in empathy and emotion recognition observed in schizophrenia may be associated with the broader pathology of schizophrenia, and therefore not detectable with subclinical populations. (shrink)

Equilibrium explanations use an equilibrium to represent and explain a system’s dynamic behavior. They provide a system with the property of global stability: a system will converge towards and remain in equilibrium regardless of its initial conditions and dynamic process. Thus, equilibrium explanations are generally treated as non-causal explanations. There are two claims subsumed under that comprehensive thesis. The first claim is that equilibrium explanations do not identify any causes because a system with global stability resists manipulation. The second claim (...) is that even if equilibrium explanations do identify causes by manipulation, those causes are embedded in a system’s deeper, underlying structural relationships, and those causes are irrelevant to explaining a system’s behavior. Only the system’s structural relationships are relevant. But equilibrium explanations are not monolithic. I compare dynamic systems with multiple, competing equilibria to systems with a globally stable equilibrium. Equilibrium explanations of the former use intervention on a system’s initial conditions and dynamic process to manipulate equilibria, which identifies causes. Furthermore, a system’s initial conditions and dynamic process are relevant to explaining why one equilibrium is selected instead of another. I then apply these lessons to systems with a globally stable equilibrium and discuss when their corresponding equilibrium explanations have a proper role in the parent sciences. (shrink)

The Moral Nexus develops and defends a new interpretation of morality—namely, as a set of requirements that connect agents normatively to other persons in a nexus of moral relations. According to this relational interpretation, moral demands are directed to other individuals, who have claims that the agent comply with these demands. Interpersonal morality, so conceived, is the domain of what we owe to each other, insofar as we are each persons with equal moral standing. The book offers an interpretative argument (...) for the relational approach. Specifically, it highlights neglected advantages of this way of understanding the moral domain; explores important theoretical and practical presuppositions of relational moral duties; and considers the normative implications of understanding morality in relational terms. The book features a novel defense of the relational approach to morality, which emphasizes the special significance that moral requirements have, both for agents who are deliberating about what to do and for those who stand to be affected by their actions. The book argues that relational moral requirements can be understood to link us to all individuals whose interests render them vulnerable to our agency, regardless of whether they stand in any prior relationship to us. It also offers fresh accounts of some of the moral phenomena that have seemed to resist treatment in relational terms, showing that the relational interpretation is a viable framework for understanding our specific moral obligations to other people. (shrink)

Feminist strong substantive autonomy (FSSA), as presented by Natalie Stoljar and Anita Superson, pronounces judgment on the autonomy status of certain women living under oppression. These women act on deformed desires, Superson explains, and as deformed desires cannot be the agent's own, the women are heteronomous. Stoljar argues that some women's choices violate the Feminist Intuition; by acting on false and oppressive values, these women render themselves heteronomous. I argue against Stoljar and Superson on epistemological grounds. I present six different (...) ways in which agents' choices can be related to deformed desires, with varying results for their autonomy statuses. I show that Stoljar and Superson are not able to distinguish properly among the differing autonomy statuses in these six cases, because doing so requires attention to agents' inner processes of decision-making, as those processes are enacted in the agents' social and temporal contexts. Stoljar and Superson judge others' autonomy statuses based on abstract generalizations rather than via empirical attention to agents' actual decision-making processes. Consequently, their judgments are not adequate to the lived self-direction of real persons. Assessing others' autonomy status requires consideration of agents' inner choice-making in sociotemporal context, which favors a procedural or weak substantive account of autonomy. (shrink)

This study advances understanding of how a normative feminine beauty ideal is maintained through cultural products such as fairy tales. Using Brothers Grimm's fairy tales, the authors explore the extent and ways in which “feminine beauty” is highlighted. Next, they compare those tales that have survived with those that have not to determine whether tales that have been popularized place more emphasis on women's beauty. The findings suggest that feminine beauty is a dominant theme and that tales with heavy emphases (...) on feminine beauty are much more likely to have survived. These findings are interpreted in light of changes in women's social status over the past 150 years and the increased importance of establishing forms of normative social control to maintain a gender system. (shrink)

Conceptual foundations for the changeover from behaviorism to mentalism are reviewed in an effort to better clarify frequently contested and misinterpreted features. The new mentalist tenets which I continue to support have been differently conceived to be a form of dualism, mind-brain identity theory, functionalism, nonreductive physical monism, dualist interactionism, emergent interactionism, and various other things. This diversity and contradiction are attributed to the fact that the new mentalist paradigm is a distinctly new position that fails to fit traditional philosophic (...) dichotomies. Formerly opposed features from previous polar alternatives become merged into a novel unifying synthesis, an unambiguous description of which demands redefinition of old terms or/and the invention of new terminology. The present analysis and interpretation are backed by statements from the early papers. (shrink)