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)

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)

This book provides a collection of sources, many of them fragmentary and previously scattered and hard to access, for the development of Peripatetic philosophy in the later Hellenistic period and the early Roman Empire. It also supplies the background against which the first commentator on Aristotle from whom extensive material survives, Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. c. AD 200), developed his interpretations which continue to be influential even today. Many of the passages are here translated into English for the first time, (...) including the whole of the summary of Peripatetic ethics attributed to 'Arius Didymus'. (shrink)

I bring together three philosophical accounts to argue that differential social shaping puts agents’ autonomy status outside their complete control, thanks to specific forms of good and bad luck generated by agents’ membership in socially privileged and socially oppressed groups. Oppression generates psychological harms and external damages, all of which can impede autonomy. Relational Autonomy analyses suggest that agents become autonomous only through relationships with others and further enact that autonomy in social contexts. Moral Luck theorists examine the apparent paradoxes (...) involved in our being held responsible for states and results outside our control; I consider the import of constitutive luck, situational luck, and resultant luck. We have limited control—hence, luck—with reference to beneficial and harmful ways in which relationships and social institutions affect our autonomy. (shrink)

I bring together three philosophical accounts to argue that differential social shaping puts agents’ autonomy status outside their complete control, thanks to specific forms of good and bad luck generated by agents’ membership in socially privileged and socially oppressed groups. Oppression generates psychological harms and external damages, all of which can impede autonomy. Relational Autonomy analyses suggest that agents become autonomous only through relationships with others and further enact that autonomy in social contexts. Moral Luck theorists examine the apparent paradoxes (...) involved in our being held responsible for states and results outside our control; I consider the import of constitutive luck, situational luck, and resultant luck. We have limited control—hence, luck—with reference to beneficial and harmful ways in which relationships and social institutions affect our autonomy. (shrink)

Normative game theory unsatisfactorily explains rational behavior. Real people do not behave as predicted, and what is prescribed as rational behavior is normally unattainable in real-life. The problem is that current normative analysis does not account for people's cognitive limitations – their bounded rationality. However, this paper develops an account of bounded rationality that explains the rationality of more realistic behavior. I focus on the Centipede Game, in which boundedly rational players explore and test others' immediate behavior, until they can (...) apply limited backward induction. The result is that the game has a solution in the form of a subjective Nash equilibrium, which boundedly rational players can possibly realize. (shrink)

This article extends Lemieux’s concern for the interdisciplinary tension between philosophy and sociology to the intradisciplinary tension within psychology between approaches to the study of children focusing on universal principles and approaches adopting a contextual lens. This tension arises both in how development is defined and in the methods chosen for its study. This tension is exemplified in terms of the recent American preoccupation with the Word Gap (WG), a supposed difference of 30 million words heard by socioeconomically diverse children (...) by the age of 4 that is blamed for educational disparities throughout the school years. The article discusses the political implications of WG discourse as it gives rise to the erasure of language practices of diverse Americans and obscures the role that the educational system plays in fostering a ‘one-size-fits-all’ instructional model. The article concludes with a discussion of attempts to combat the deficit model that the WG discourse reproduces. (shrink)

R.I.G. Hughes presents a series of eight philosophical essays on the theoretical practices of physics. The first two essays examine these practices as they appear in physicists' treatises (e.g. Newton's Principia and Opticks ) and journal articles (by Einstein, Bohm and Pines, Aharonov and Bohm). By treating these publications as texts, Hughes casts the philosopher of science in the role of critic. This premise guides the following 6 essays which deal with various concerns of philosophy of physics such as laws, (...) disunities, models and representation, computer simulation, explanation, and the discourse of physics. (shrink)

We should approach this topic with great fear and respect. It is not a merely “academic” issue. Human rights are trampled upon in the East as in the West, in the North as in the South of our planet. Granting the part of human greed and sheer evil in this universal transgression, could it not also be that Human Rights are not observed because in their present form they do not represent a universal symbol powerful enough to elicit understanding and (...) agreement? (shrink)

Chemical structures are among the trademarks of our profession, as surely chemical as flasks, beakers and distillation columns. When someone sees one of us busily scribbling formulas or structures, he or she has no trouble identifying a chemist. Yet these familiar objects, which accompany our work from start to end, from the initial doodlings (Fig. I) to the final polished artwork in a publication (Fig. II), are deceptively simple. They raise interesting and difficult questions about representation. It is the intent (...) of this article to reflect upon molecular graphics. (shrink)

Ethics and Decision Making in Counseling and Psychotherapy has a distinct and timely focus on counseling as a profession. Chapters address the mental health professions, values in counseling, decision making, ethical principles, ethical standards, technology, ethical climate, and office/administrative practices. The early chapters present a foundation for ethical practice of the profession and provides solid building blocks to the more advanced perspectives in later chapters. Chapters on specialty practice are lively and contemporary overviews of these practice areas in counseling that (...) reflect more recent trends to increased differentiation of these areas of practice. Each specialty has its own chapter to allow for an extended discussion of the unique aspects of the field that provide clarity to understanding the particular ethical issues and standards that apply in each specialty. The specialty areas recognized by CACREP are included: mental health counseling; school counseling; couple, marital, and family counseling; rehabilitation counseling; addictions counseling; career counseling; and group counseling. This book is broad in its coverage of the most practiced specialties in mental health practice, and provides an efficient and effective overview of the broad scope of particular areas addressed in counseling. (shrink)

How do we explain violence? What is so significant of modern forms of violence that it has produced such large-scale destruction in its wake? This volume builds on the political philosophy of Wittgenstein, his notions of peace and violence, to explore how violence in any form is contained within culturally or ideologically formed institutions. Drawing on Wittgenstein's work on language, it explores the link between language and violence, everydayness, culture. It examines everyday instances of micro-violence which we sometimes forget to (...) recall. This book puts forth the claim that any theory of violence will have to touch upon the many myriad - both micro and macro -- political, social and cultural interactions that make up the human condition. The author further comments on the unseen ways in which violence has been instrumentalized in modern history's many stages to create a spectacle of power so as to reinforce authority. The volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of peace and conflict studies, political philosophy, linguistics and modern history. (shrink)