The relations between automatic processing and consciousness are discussed in this paper. It is argued that automatic processing should not be identified with the absence of consciousness. The organism has access to representations resulting from automatic processing, but these representations, in contrast to the representations resulting from nonautomatic processing, are not propositional. Therefore monitoring of the process, the defining feature of nonautomatic processing, is not possible.

We apply Dienes & Perner's (D&P's) framework to the automatic/nonautomatic processing contrast. Our analysis leads to the conclusion that automatic and nonautomatic processing result in representations that have explicit results. We propose equating consciousness with explicitness of aspects rather than with full explicitness as defined by D&P.

We agree that the default numerical representation is best accessed by probing automatic processing. The locus of this representation is apparently at the horizontal intraparietal sulcus (HIPS), the convergence zone of magnitude information. The parietal lobes are the right place to look for non-abstract representation of magnitude, yet the proof for that is still to be found.

In this commentary I show that the SOC framework implies automaticity of both the materialization of phenomenological conscious experience and the application of the primitives resulting from the emergence of consciousness. In addition, SOC implies that cognition refers to conscious experience. Consequently, I propose automatic/nonautomatic instead of unconscious/conscious as the basic contrast characterizing human cognition.

Are small and large numbers represented similarly or differently on the mental number line? The size effect was used to argue that numbers are represented differently. However, recently it has been argued that the size effect is due to the comparison task and is not derived from the mental number line per se. Namely, it is due to the way that the mental number line is mapped onto the task-relevant output component. Here synesthesia was used to disentangle these two alternatives. (...) In two naming experiments a digit-color synesthete showed that the congruity effect was modulated by number size. These results support the existence of a mental number line with a vaguer numerical representation as numbers increase in size. In addition, the results show that in digit-color synesthesia, colors can evoke numerical representation automatically. (shrink)

The current study addresses how information whose processing was not part of task requirement is represented in memory. Using a novel measure, recognition memory for unattended material was assessed twice, once when it appeared with the same attended study target and once with a new target. The data reveal memory for unattended study information only in the old target condition. Results suggest that the entire study event is encoded and represented in a memory trace, which contains both attended target information (...) along with unattended context information. In conclusion, manifestation of unattended memory may be dependent on the presence of old target information at test. (shrink)

Starting with Dienes and Perner’s distinction between explicit and implicit knowledge and the traditional philosophical distinction between COS as an object and COS as a subject, we suggest a triple classification of COS experience into three modes, each corresponding to a different state of consciousness. When one acts automatically COS is totally embedded within the representation of the environment. When one monitors or attends to one’s experience, the self is implied by an explicit representation of one’s attitudes, consistent with Descartes’ (...) cogito insight ‘I think therefore I am’ . However, a reflexive thought, e.g., ‘I know fact x,’ requires an explicit representation of the self. This analysis highlights the existence of an intermediate mode of COS as a subject and suggests its possible connection to monitoring one’s behavior. (shrink)

We agree with Clarke and Beck that the approximate number system represents rational numbers, and we demonstrate our support by highlighting the case of the empty set – the non-symbolic manifestation of zero. It is particularly interesting because of its perceptual and semantic uniqueness, and its exploration reveals fundamental new insights about how numerical information is represented.

Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world's top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers – often implicitly – assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these “standard subjects” are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there is (...) substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species – frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior – hence, there are no obviousa priorigrounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions ofhumannature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity. We close by proposing ways to structurally re-organize the behavioral sciences to best tackle these challenges. (shrink)

"First published by Oxford University Press, 1916."--Title page verso.

Does all conscious experience essentially involve self-consciousness? In his Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First-Person, Dan Zahavi answers “yes”. I criticize three core arguments offered in support of this answer—a well-known regress argument, what I call the “interview argument,” and a phenomenological argument. Drawing on Sartre, I introduce a phenomenological contrast between plain experience and self-conscious experience. The contrast challenges the thesis that conscious experience entails self-consciousness.

Since the very beginning, Confucianism has been troubled by a serious gap between its political ideals and the reality of societal circumstances. Contemporary Confucians must develop a viable method of governance that can retain the spirit of the Confucian ideal while tackling problems arising from nonideal modern situations. The best way to meet this challenge, Joseph Chan argues, is to adopt liberal democratic institutions that are shaped by the Confucian conception of the good rather than the liberal conception of (...) the right.Confucian Perfectionism examines and reconstructs both Confucian political thought and liberal democratic institutions, blending them to form a new Confucian political philosophy. Chan decouples liberal democratic institutions from their popular liberal philosophical foundations in fundamental moral rights, such as popular sovereignty, political equality, and individual sovereignty. Instead, he grounds them on Confucian principles and redefines their roles and functions, thus mixing Confucianism with liberal democratic institutions in a way that strengthens both. Then he explores the implications of this new yet traditional political philosophy for fundamental issues in modern politics, including authority, democracy, human rights, civil liberties, and social justice.Confucian Perfectionism critically reconfigures the Confucian political philosophy of the classical period for the contemporary era. (shrink)

Joseph J. Fins calls for a reconsideration of severe brain injury treatment, including discussion of public policy and physician advocacy.

José Benardete developed a famous paradox involving a beginningless set of items each member of which satisfies some predicate just in case no earlier member satisfies it. The Grim Reaper version of this paradox has recently been employed in favor of various finitist metaphysical theses, ranging from temporal finitism to causal finitism to the discrete nature of time. Here, I examine a new challenge to these finitist arguments—namely, the challenge of implying that the future cannot be endless. In particular, I (...) develop future-oriented Benardete paradoxes and examine their epistemic symmetry with past-oriented paradoxes. (shrink)

Rigid designators for concrete objects and for properties -- On the coherence of the distinction -- On whether the distinction assigns to rigidity the right role -- A uniform treatment of property designators as singular terms -- Rigid appliers -- Rigidity - associated arguments in support of theoretical identity statements: on their significance and the cost of its philosophical resources -- The skeptical argument impugning psychophysical identity statements: on its significance and the cost of its philosophical resources -- The skeptical (...) argument further examined: on resources, allegedly overlooked, for confirming psychological identities. (shrink)

Benardete paradoxes involve a beginningless set each member of which satisfies some predicate just in case no earlier member satisfies it. Such paradoxes have been wielded on behalf of arguments for the impossibility of an infinite past. These arguments often deploy patchwork principles in support of their key linking premise. Here I argue that patchwork principles fail to justify this key premise.

The paper argues that normative reasons are of two fundamental kinds, practical which are value related, and adaptive, which are not related to any value, but indicate how our beliefs and emotions should adjust to fit how things are in the world. The distinction is applied and defended, in part through an additional distinction between standard and non-standard reasons (for actions, intentions, emotions or belief).

Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world's top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers – often implicitly – assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these “standard subjects” are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there is (...) substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species – frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior – hence, there are no obviousa priorigrounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions ofhumannature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity. We close by proposing ways to structurally re-organize the behavioral sciences to best tackle these challenges. (shrink)

Belief storage is often modeled as having the structure of a single, unified web. This model of belief storage is attractive and widely assumed because it appears to provide an explanation of the flexibility of cognition and the complicated dynamics of belief revision. However, when one scrutinizes human cognition, one finds strong evidence against a unified web of belief and for a fragmented model of belief storage. Using the best available evidence from cognitive science, we develop this fragmented model into (...) a nascent theory of the cognitive architecture of belief storage. (shrink)

I defend a new argument for causal finitism, the view that nothing can have an infinite causal history. I begin by defending a number of plausible metaphysical principles, after which I explore a host of novel variants of the Littlewood-Ross and Thomson’s Lamp paradoxes that violate such principles. I argue that causal finitism is the best solution to the paradoxes.

The thesis of self-elusiveness says, roughly, that the self fails to be phenomenally manifest from the first-person perspective. This thesis has a long history. Yet many who endorse it do so only in a very specific sense. They say that the self fails to be phenomenally manifest as an object from the first-person perspective; they say that self-experience is not a species of ‘object-consciousness’. Yet if consciousness outstrips object-consciousness, then we are left with the possibility that there is another sense (...) in which the self is phenomenally manifest. Alas, efforts to articulate just what this form of self-experience comes to—often a holy grail of sorts for those in, and influenced by, the phenomenological tradition—have remained stubbornly obscure. This essay attempts a partial remedy. Taking a cue from Bernard Lonergan, I suggest that self-experience, while not a species of object-consciousness, is nonetheless partially grounded in it. The result is a view that is compatible with self-experience being representational and relational, contra tradition. (shrink)

Longlisted for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award A leading neuroscientist offers a history of the evolution of the brain from unicellular organisms to the complexity of animals and human beings today Renowned neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux digs into the natural history of life on earth to provide a new perspective on the similarities between us and our ancestors in deep time. This page-turning survey of the whole of terrestrial evolution sheds new light on how nervous systems evolved in (...) animals, how the brain developed, and what it means to be human. In The Deep History of Ourselves, LeDoux argues that the key to understanding human behavior lies in viewing evolution through the prism of the first living organisms. By tracking the chain of the evolutionary timeline he shows how even the earliest single-cell organisms had to solve the same problems we and our cells have to solve each day. Along the way, LeDoux explores our place in nature, how the evolution of nervous systems enhanced the ability of organisms to survive and thrive, and how the emergence of what we humans understand as consciousness made our greatest and most horrendous achievements as a species possible. (shrink)

Joseph Sauveur (1653-1716) fut mathématicien, physicien et théoricien de la musique. Souvent considéré comme le fondateur de l' acoustique moderne, on lui doit les premières mesures de la fréquence absolue d'un son, une théorie mathématique du tempérament, les premières explications convaincantes des phénomènes d'harmoniques et de battements, ainsi que l'application de ses recherches aux jeux d'orgue et à d'autres instruments de musique. Ce volume réunit l'ensemble des travaux de Sauveur sur le son et la musique, ainsi qu'un manuscrit de (...) cet auteur datant de 1697, publié ici pour la première fois. Les travaux de Sauveur sont accompagnés de textes d'introduction et de notes explicatives"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Analytic debates about truth are wide-ranging, but certain key themes tend to crop up time and again. The three themes that we will examine in this paper are (i) the nature and behaviour of the ordinary concept of truth, (ii) the meaning of discourse about truth, and (iii) the nature of the property truth. We will start by offering a brief overview of the debates centring on these themes. We will then argue that cross-linguistic experimental philosophy has an indispensable yet (...) underappreciated role to play in all of these debates. Recognising the indispensability of cross-linguistic experimental philosophy should compel philosophers to significantly revise the ways in which they inquire about truth. It should also prompt analytic philosophers more generally to consider whether similar revisions might be necessary elsewhere in the field. (shrink)

The seventh edition of this pragmatic guide to determining right and wrong in the workplace is updated with new case studies and ancillary materials to combine stakeholder perspectives with a deep dive on workplace ethics issues. Using a unique stakeholder-based approach, this book takes business ethics out of the theory realm and provides practical ways to analyze any business decision. Including dozens of cases, Joseph Weiss looks beyond the impacts of ethical lapses on share price and profit to focus (...) on relationships between stakeholders, including individuals, groups, corporations, and governments. The new seventh edition includes seven new cases and ten new Point/Counterpoint exercises, which challenge students to argue both sides of a contemporary issue. It incorporates the latest research as well as updated cases dealing with recent scandals at organizations such as Boeing, Facebook, and Uber. Professors will have access to online support, including teaching notes, PowerPoint slides, and sample tests. The book is equipped with a step-by-step guide to implementing stakeholder analysis, tips to help students apply ethical principles in their personal and professional lives, and comprehensive coverage of employee workplace issues. Addressing relevant topics such as risk management, preferential hiring, and sexual harassment in conjunction with the digital divide, bribery, the environment, and more, Business Ethics, seventh edition explores ethical implications in today's increasingly interconnected global business environment. (shrink)

Renaissance Posthumanism brings together two historical periods--"Renaissance" signifying a rebirth of the ancient and "Posthumanism" a death of the modern--to ponder each through the possibilities of the other. This collection rethinks the humanities under the auspices of the posthumanities of the posthumanities under the auspices of Renaissance humanism.

This collection of chapters, from an international group of theologians and scripture scholars, engages the hermeneutical insights of Bernard Lonergan and those influenced by him to both advance theoretical discussions concerning the interpretation of Christian Scripture and to demonstrate the usefulness of such hermeneutical insights through applied readings of specific biblical texts.

In “Brain Data in Context: Are New Rights the Way to Mental and Brain Privacy?” Daniel Susser and Laura Cabrera (2024) make a compelling case as to why the greater availability of neural data itsel...

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Consciousness, subjectivity, and the history of the organism -- Subjectivity considered as the first-person perspective -- Subjectivity and reference -- Unconscious subjectivity -- What subjectivity is not -- Subjectivity in the neurobiological image -- Subjectivity in the neurobiological image -- The science of subjectivity -- Putting the neuro in neurophenomenology -- Neural correlates of consciousness reconsidered -- Neurophilosophy, Darwinian naturalism, and subjectivity.

Management Ethics: Integrity at Work redefines what it means for a manager to function with integrity in the private and public sectorsùdomestically and globally. It integrates the latest theoretical work in both descriptive and normative ethics, and incorporates legal, communication, quality, and organizational theories into a conceptual framework that improves managerial judgment in the handling of moral complexity at work. The authors use their organizational ethics consulting and academic research experience to provide practical assessment and decision-making tools that convert ethics (...) theories into sound action steps. The book examines three key dimensions of management integrityùjudgment, process, and developmental dimensionsùand applies them to individual chapters devoted to the subprocesses of ethical planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. The authors focus their theories and tools on 28 ethics minicases related to each management function in seven allied management application clusters: accounting, auditing management; finance, investment management; marketing, advertising management; business management, business law, human resource management; technology, quality operations, organizational behavior management; public, nonprofit, health care management; and international, environmental, public policy management. Management Ethics: Integrity at Work builds management integrity by linking and enhancing both ethics and management competence in responsible planning, organizing, leading, and controlling for use by professionals and students in the private and public sectorsùdomestically and globally. (shrink)