Social-psychological dimensions of learning are under-researched, but they affect student achievement. Within a marketized higher education context in England, United Kingdom, this study examined whether the relation between students’ social identities as members of their discipline and academic achievement could be further understood by considering the mediating roles of approaches to learning and frequency of making course complaints. Undergraduates completed a questionnaire to assess these constructs. As expected, approaches to learning and course complaining both acted as serial mediators of the (...) link between discipline identification and academic achievement: stronger discipline identification was related to more deep approaches to learning, less complaining, and higher achievement, whereas weaker discipline identification was related to more surface approaches to learning, more complaining, and lower achievement. The findings suggest that addressing these social-psychological aspects of learning could improve students’ academic achievement. (shrink)

Ethnic groups are universal and unique to human societies. Such groups sometimes have norms of behavior that are adaptively linked to their social and ecological circumstances, and ethnic boundaries may function to protect that variation from erosion by interethnic interaction. However, such interaction is often frequent and voluntary, suggesting that individuals may be able to strategically reduce its costs, allowing adaptive cultural variation to persist in spite of interaction with out-groups with different norms. We examine five mechanisms influencing the dynamics (...) of ethnically distinct cultural norms, each focused on strategic individual-level choices in interethnic interaction: bargaining, interaction-frequency-biased norm adoption, assortment on norms, success-biased interethnic social learning, and childhood socialization. We use Bayesian item response models to analyze patterns of norm variation and interethnic interaction in an ethnically structured Amazonian population. We show that, among indigenous Matsigenka, interethnic education with colonial Mestizos is more strongly associated with Mestizo-typical norms than even extensive interethnic experience in commerce and wage labor is. Using ethnographic observations, we show that all five of the proposed mechanisms of norm adoption may contribute to this effect. However, of these mechanisms, we argue that changes in relative bargaining power are particularly important for ethnic minorities wishing to preserve distinctive norms while engaging in interethnic interaction in domains such as education. If this mechanism proves applicable in a range of other ethnographic contexts, it would constitute one cogent explanation for when and why ethnically structured cultural variation can either persist or erode given frequent, and often mutually beneficial, interethnic interaction. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes' natural philosophy is often characterised as rationalistic in opposition to the emerging inductivist method employed by Francis Bacon and fellows of the Gresham College - later the Royal Society. Where as the inductivists researched and published a multitude of natural histories, Hobbes' mature publications contain little natural historical information. Nonetheless, Hobbes read numerous natural histories and incorporated them into his works and often used details from these histories to support important theoretical moves. He also wrote a number of (...) natural histories, some of which remain either unpublished or untranslated. Hobbes' own mature statements about his early interest in natural histories are also misleading. This article attempts to review Hobbes' early writings on natural histories and argues that his works of the 1630s and 1640s owe a significant debt to the natural histories of Francis Bacon, Hobbes' one-time patron. (shrink)

From 1998 to 2005, six elections took place in postcommunist Europe that had the surprising outcome of empowering the opposition and defeating authoritarian incumbents or their designated successors. Valerie J. Bunce and Sharon L. Wolchik compare these unexpected electoral breakthroughs. They draw three conclusions. First, the opposition was victorious because of the hard and creative work of a transnational network composed of local opposition and civil society groups, members of the international democracy assistance community and graduates of successful electoral (...) challenges to authoritarian rule in other countries. Second, the remarkable run of these upset elections reflected the ability of this network to diffuse an ensemble of innovative electoral strategies across state boundaries. Finally, elections can serve as a powerful mechanism for democratic change. This is especially the case when civil society is strong, the transfer of political power is through constitutional means, and opposition leaders win with small mandates. (shrink)

Carl Craver investigates what we are doing when we sue neuroscience to explain what's going on in the brain.

Carl F. Craver investigates what we are doing when we use neuroscience to explain what's going on in the brain. When does an explanation succeed and when does it fail? Craver offers explicit standards for successful explanation of the workings of the brain, on the basis of a systematic view about what neuroscientific explanations are.

There is growing interest in nature-based interventions to improve human health and wellbeing. An important nascent area is exploring the potential of outdoor therapies to treat and prevent common mental health problems like depression. In this conceptual analysis on the nature–depression nexus, we distil some of the main issues for consideration when NBIs for depression are being developed. We argue that understanding the mechanisms, or ‘active ingredients’ in NBIs is crucial to understand what works and for whom. Successfully identifying modifiable (...) mediating intervention targets will pave the way for interventions with increased efficacy. We highlight a non-exhaustive list of five clinically relevant putative, candidate mechanisms which may underly the beneficial effects of NBIs on depression: stress, rumination, mindfulness, sleep and exercise. We also make the case that when developing NBIs it is important to not neglect young people, explore personalised approaches and focus on both treatment and prevention approaches. To achieve these aims methodologically rigorous programmes of clinical research are needed that include well-powered and controlled experimental designs including randomised controlled trials, qualitative research, longitudinal studies and large prospective cohorts. (shrink)

This article explores the use of walking interviews as a research method. In spite of a wave of interest in methods which take interviewing out of the "safe," stationary environment, there has been limited work critically examining the techniques for undertaking such work. Curiously for a method which takes an explicitly spatial approach, few projects have attempted to rigorously connect what participants say with where they say it. The article reviews three case studies where the authors have used different techniques, (...) including GPS, for locating the interview in space. The article concludes by arguing that researchers considering using walking interviews need to think carefully about what kinds of data they wish to generate when deciding which approach to adopt. (shrink)

This collection of articles and associated discussion papers focuses on a problem that has attracted increasing attention from linguists and psychologists throughout the world during the past several years. Reduced to essentials, the problem is that of discovering the character of the mental capacities that make it possible for human beings to attain knowledge of their language on the basis of fragmentary and haphazard early linguistic experience. A fundamental assumption running through all of these contributions is that people possess strong (...) innate predispositions that are critical for success in this task. (shrink)

According to one large family of views, scientific explanations explain a phenomenon (such as an event or a regularity) by subsuming it under a general representation, model, prototype, or schema (see Bechtel, W., & Abrahamsen, A. (2005). Explanation: A mechanist alternative. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 36(2), 421–441; Churchland, P. M. (1989). A neurocomputational perspective: The nature of mind and the structure of science. Cambridge: MIT Press; Darden (2006); Hempel, C. G. (1965). Aspects of scientific (...) explanation. In C. G. Hempel (Ed.), Aspects of scientific explanation (pp. 331–496). New York: Free Press; Kitcher (1989); Machamer, P., Darden, L., & Craver, C. F. (2000). Thinking about mechanisms. Philosophy of Science, 67(1), 1–25). My concern is with the minimal suggestion that an adequate philosophical theory of scientific explanation can limit its attention to the format or structure with which theories are represented. The representational subsumption view is a plausible hypothesis about the psychology of understanding. It is also a plausible claim about how scientists present their knowledge to the world. However, one cannot address the central questions for a philosophical theory of scientific explanation without turning one’s attention from the structure of representations to the basic commitments about the worldly structures that plausibly count as explanatory. A philosophical theory of scientific explanation should achieve two goals. The first is explanatory demarcation. It should show how explanation relates with other scientific achievements, such as control, description, measurement, prediction, and taxonomy. The second is explanatory normativity. It should say when putative explanations succeed and fail. One cannot achieve these goals without undertaking commitments about the kinds of ontic structures that plausibly count as explanatory. Representations convey explanatory information about a phenomenon when and only when they describe the ontic explanations for those phenomena. (shrink)

Traces the development of the integral and the differential calculus and related theories since ancient times.

Longtermists have argued that humanity should significantly increase its efforts to prevent catastrophes like nuclear wars, pandemics, and AI disasters. But one prominent longtermist argument overshoots this conclusion: the argument also implies that humanity should reduce the risk of existential catastrophe even at extreme cost to the present generation. This overshoot means that democratic governments cannot use the longtermist argument to guide their catastrophe policy. In this paper, we show that the case for preventing catastrophe does not depend on longtermism. (...) Standard cost-benefit analysis implies that governments should spend much more on reducing catastrophic risk. We argue that a government catastrophe policy guided by cost-benefit analysis should be the goal of longtermists in the political sphere. This policy would be democratically acceptable, and it would reduce existential risk by almost as much as a strong longtermist policy. (shrink)

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections (...) in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ Uber Den Psychologischen Ursprung Der Raumvorstellung Carl Stumpf S. Hirzel, 1873 Space perception. (shrink)

The fundamental tenet of modern empiricism is the view that all non-analytic knowledge is based on experience. Let us call this thesis the principle of empiricism. [1] Contemporary logical empiricism has added [2] to it the maxim that a sentence makes a cognitively meaningful assertion, and thus can be said to be either true or false, only if it is either (1) analytic or self-contradictory or (2) capable, at least in principle, of experiential test. According to this so-called empiricist criterion (...) of cognitive meaning, or of cognitive significance, many of the formulations of traditional metaphysics and large parts of epistemology are devoid of cognitive significance--however rich some of them may be in non-cognitive import by virtue of their emotive appeal or the moral inspiration they offer. Similarly certain doctrines which have been, at one time or another, formulated within empirical science or its border disciplines are so contrived as to be incapable of test by any conceivable evidence; they are therefore qualified as pseudo- [p. 42:] hypotheses, which assert nothing, and which therefore have no explanatory or predictive force whatever. This verdict applies, for example, to the neo-vitalist speculations about entelechies or vital forces, and to the "telefinalist hypothesis" propounded by Lecomte du Noüy. (shrink)

A world awash in little understood chemicals tragically harms adults and children alike. Laws keep health agencies in the dark about toxicants, slow, well motivated research hampers protections, and strenuous vested opposition exacerbates the harm. How science is used in the tort law can facilitate or frustrate redress of harm. This book recommends better approaches.

This volume presents research that integrates decision making and creativity within the social contexts in which these processes occur. The volume is an essential addition to and expansion of recent approaches to decision making. Such approaches attempt to incorporate more of the psychological and socio-cultural context in which human decision making takes place. The authors come from different disciplines and also belong to a broad spectrum of research traditions. They present innovative chapters dealing with both theoretical and empirical aspects of (...) decision making in different personal and organizational contexts. All chapters are written from the perspective that human decision making is inherently social and more or less creative. The volume addresses fundamental questions about the nature of human decision making as it occurs in different social contexts. Thereby, it becomes essential reading for researchers in decision making and for advanced students in psychology, management science, informatics, and related disciplines. (shrink)

Research on human decision making is at the present time undergoing rapid changes. From previously being much focused on models and approaches with an origin in economy, much of the present day research finds its inspiration from disciplinary approaches concerned with incorporating more of the context that the decision making takes place in. This context includes psychological aspects of the decision maker and social-cultural aspects of the situation he or she acts in. All human decision making occurs in dynamically changing (...) contexts. One factor contributing to this is that human beings or groups in many situations act as entrepreneurs trying to improve the situation for themselves or their organization. Given that this is the case, it is of increasing interest for both researchers and practitioners interested in the social aspects of decision making to consider the relation between creativity and decision making. (shrink)

In his historical perspective on the changes in scientific thought over the last 100 years, Carl N. Degler explores the study of social evolution and the ongoing search for human nature. In Search of Human Nature provides a detailed perspective on the reasons behind the shifting emphasis in social thought from biology, to culture, and again to biology. Degler examines why these changes took place, the evidence and people fostering these changes and why students of human nature decided to (...) accept this momentous change in thought. He suggests varying ideologies as the underlying force behind this shift in the study of social science. From Darwin's theory that human social behaviour has drastically evolved from animals, to the belief that human experience serves as the basic differentiating factor in humans, Degler provides a thorough and captivating examination of the roots of human behaviour. (shrink)

In this paper I argue against one variety of contextualism about aesthetic predicates such as “beautiful.” Contextualist analyses of these and other predicates have been subject to several challenges surrounding disagreement. Focusing on one kind of contextualism— individualized indexical contextualism —I unpack these various challenges and consider the responses available to the contextualist. The three responses I consider are as follows: giving an alternative analysis of the concept of disagreement ; claiming that speakers suffer from semantic blindness; and claiming that (...) attributions of beauty carry presuppositions of commonality. I will argue that none of the available strategies gives a response which both satisfactorily explains all of the disagreement -data and is plausible independent of significant evidence in favor of contextualism. I conclude that individualized indexical contextualism about the aesthetic is untenable, although this does not rule out alternative contextualist approaches to the aesthetic. (shrink)

The relationship between science, law and justice has become a pressing issue with US Supreme Court decisions beginning with Daubert v. Merrell-Dow Pharmaceutical. How courts review scientific testimony and its foundation before trial can substantially affect the possibility of justice for persons wrongfully injured by exposure to toxic substances. If courts do not review scientific testimony, they will deny one of the parties the possibility of justice. Even if courts review evidence well, the fact and perception of greater judicial scrutiny (...) increases litigation costs and attorney screening of clients. Mistaken review of scientific evidence can decrease citizen access to the law, increase unfortunate incentives for firms not to test their products, lower deterrence for wrongful conduct and harmful products, and decrease the possibility of justice for citizens injured by toxic substances. This book introduces these issues, reveals the relationships that pose problems, and shows how justice can be denied. (shrink)

Some philosophers writing on the possibility of faultless disagreement have argued that the only way to account for the intuition that there could be disagreements which are faultless in every sense is to accept a relativistic semantics. In this article we demonstrate that this view is mistaken by constructing an absolutist semantics for a particular domain – aesthetic discourse – which allows for the possibility of genuinely faultless disagreements. We argue that this position is an improvement over previous absolutist responses (...) to the relativist's challenge and that it presents an independently plausible account of the semantics of aesthetic discourse. (shrink)

This remarkable book presents a rich and up-to-date view of evolution that explores the far-reaching implications of Darwin's theory and emphasizes the power, significance, and relevance of evolution to our lives today. After all, we ourselves are the product of evolution, and we can tackle many of our gravest challenges -- from lethal resurgence of antiobiotic-resistant diseases to the wave of extinctions that looms before us -- with a sound understanding of the science.

For the greater part of the last 50 years, it has been common for philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists to invoke the notion of realization in discussing the relationship between the mind and the brain. In traditional philosophy of mind, mental states are said to be realized, instantiated, or implemented in brain states. Artificial intelligence is sometimes described as the attempt either to model or to actually construct systems that realize some of the same psychological abilities that we and (...) other living creatures possess. The claim that specific psychological. (shrink)

_Not exercising as much as you should? Counting your calories in your sleep? Feeling ashamed for not being happier? You may be a victim of the wellness syndrome._ In this ground-breaking new book, Carl Cederström and André Spicer argue that the ever-present pressure to maximize our wellness has started to work against us, making us feel worse and provoking us to withdraw into ourselves. The Wellness Syndrome follows health freaks who go to extremes to find the perfect diet, corporate (...) athletes who start the day with a dance party, and the self-trackers who monitor everything, including their own toilet habits. This is a world where feeling good has become indistinguishable from being good. Visions of social change have been reduced to dreams of individual transformation, political debate has been replaced by insipid moralising, and scientific evidence has been traded for new-age delusions. A lively and humorous diagnosis of the cult of wellness, this book is an indispensable guide for everyone suspicious of our relentless quest to be happier and healthier. (shrink)

The world is awash in bullshit, and we're drowning in it. Politicians are unconstrained by facts. Science is conducted by press release. Startup culture elevates bullshit to high art. These days, calling bullshit is a noble act. Based on Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West's popular course at the University of Washington, Calling Bullshit is a modern handbook to the art of skepticism. Bergstrom, a computational biologist, and West, an information scientist, catalogue bullshit in its many forms, explaining and offering (...) readers the tools to see through the obfuscations, deliberate and careless, that dominate every realm of our lives. They instruct readers to ask: Who is saying it? How do they know? What do they have to gain by persuading me? Are the numbers or results too good or too dramatic to be true? Is the claim comparing like with like or apples and oranges? Is it confirming your personal bias? In this lively guide to everything from misleading statistics to "fake news," Bergstrom and West help you recognize bullshit whenever and wherever you encounter it--in data, in conversation, even within yourself--and explain it to your crystal-loving aunt or casually racist uncle. Now more than ever, calling bullshit is crucial to a properly functioning community, whether it be a circle of friends, a network of academics, or the citizenry of a nation. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt (1888–1985), Professor für Staats- und Völkerrecht, bewegt nach wie vor die Gemüter. Die Reaktion auf seine Schriften, Handlungen und Ausstrahlungen ist vielfältig; die Spanne reicht von entrüsteten, für die er der Teufel in Person bleibt, über viele Zwischenstufen bis zu jenen Lesern, die ihn für einen der subtilsten, noch keineswegs ausgeloteten Geistern dieses Jahrhunderts halten. Sein Leben lang war Carl Schmitt ein passionierter Schreiber von Briefen. Meist handelte es sich um handschriftlich verfasste, die für den Schreibenden (...) die Fortsetzung eines konkreten Gespräches mit anderen Mitteln war. Das macht das authentische und die Spontanität der Schmitt-Briefe aus. Als erste Edition einer umfangreichen Korrespondenz wird in dem Buch die Korrespondenz zwischen Carl Schmitt und Armin Mohler veröffentlicht. Der Briefwechsel umfasst die Zeit von 1947 bis 1980 und enthält 280 Briefe und Karten von Carl Schmitt an Armin Mohler. Von dem Briefpartner und Herausgeber wird in der Regel aus den eigenen Briefen nur auszugsweise zitiert, sofern es für das von Carl Schmitt Geschriebene notwendig ist. Armin Mohler (1920 bis 2003), ist einer der bekanntesten rechtskonservativen Schriftsteller, Kritiker und Historiker in Deutschland. Sein Handbuch zur Konservativen Revolution ist ein Standardwerk. In der Zeit des Briefwechsels war Mohler von 1949 bis 1953 Sekretär Ernst Jüngers, danach Korrespondent großer Zeitungen in Paris und von 1964 an Geschäftsführer der Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung, in der er sehr beachtete Symposien zu aktuellen wissenschaftlichen Themen organisierte. Der Briefwechsel ist für die Deutung Carl Schmitts in der Nachkriegszeit in seinem Sauerländer "Exil" grundlegend, gleichzeitig enthält er pointierte Schlaglichter auf das politische und kulturelle Geschehen der frühen und mittleren Bundesrepublik sowie auf Werk und Leben von Ernst Jünger. (shrink)

This is a comprehensive, authoritative and innovative account of Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism, one of the most enigmatic and influential philosophies in the West. In twenty-one chapters covering a timespan from the sixth century BC to the seventeenth century AD, leading scholars construct a number of different images of Pythagoras and his community, assessing current scholarship and offering new answers to central problems. Chapters are devoted to the early Pythagoreans, and the full breadth of Pythagorean thought is explored including politics, religion, (...) music theory, science, mathematics and magic. Separate chapters consider Pythagoreanism in Plato, Aristotle, the Peripatetics and the later Academic tradition, while others describe Pythagoreanism in the historical tradition, in Rome and in the pseudo-Pythagorean writings. The three great lives of Pythagoras by Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry and Iamblichus are also discussed in detail, as is the significance of Pythagoras for the Middle Ages and Renaissance. (shrink)

A mutual fund family incubates a fund when it creates a privately subsidized fund not available to the general investing public. It destroys unsuccessful incubator funds. The few successful funds will report higher incubation returns than the market return in advertisements intended to attract money from individual investors. This practice is currently allowed by the SEC. The evidence is that incubation returns are not a good predictor of subsequent fund performance and likely serve to mislead unsuspecting investors.

Arguments from disagreement often take centre stage in debates between competing semantic theories. This paper explores the theoretical basis for arguments from disagreement and, in so doing, proposes methodological principles which allow us to distinguish between legitimate arguments from disagreement and dialectically ineffective arguments from disagreement. In the light of these principles, I evaluate Cappelen and Hawthorne's [2009] argument from disagreement against relativism, and show that it fails to undermine relativism since it is dialectically ineffective. Nevertheless, I argue that an (...) alternative challenge to relativism based on disagreement is available. More generally, I argue that semantic theory is not answerable to data stemming from ‘loaded’ philosophical principles regarding the nature of disagreement. Rather, semantic theorists will exhaust their dialectical responsibilities regarding disagreement if they can demonstrate consistency with a minimal account of the concept. (shrink)

Archytas of Tarentum is one of the three most important philosophers in the Pythagorean tradition, a prominent mathematician, who gave the first solution to the famous problem of doubling the cube, an important music theorist, and the leader of a powerful Greek city-state. He is famous for sending a trireme to rescue Plato from the clutches of the tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysius II, in 361 BC. This 2005 study was the first extensive enquiry into Archytas' work in any language. It (...) contains original texts, English translations and a commentary for all the fragments of his writings and for all testimonia concerning his life and work. In addition there are introductory essays on Archytas' life and writings, his philosophy, and the question of authenticity. Carl A. Huffman presents an interpretation of Archytas' significance both for the Pythagorean tradition and also for fourth-century Greek thought, including the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. (shrink)

This study investigated the attitudinal responses of 403 undergraduate students with respect to nine hypothetical marketing moral dilemmas. Participants varied by gender, major, and age.It was found that undergraduate women responded more ethically on the hypothetical marketing moral dilemmas, as hypothesized. Secondly, chosen major did not make a difference on cognitive, affective, or behavioral responses. Further, the overall means for each scenario were in the morally correct direction in every case. Also, all intercorrelations for each story were significant. Finally, whenever (...) there was a nonchance finding for age, the oldest participants answered more morally than the youngest subjects. (shrink)

The signaling theory of religion has many claimed virtues, but these are not necessarily all realizable at the same time. Modeling choices involve trade-offs, and the available options here have not traditionally been well understood. This paper offers an overview of signaling theory relevant to the signaling theory of religion, arguing for a narrow, “core” reading of it. I outline a broad taxonomy of the choices on offer for signaling models, and examples of how previous and potential approaches to modeling (...) religious signaling meet or fail to meet the initial promise of the theory. A pluralist approach to religious signaling seems possible, but this would require a high level of detail and specificity with respect to both formal models and target systems. (shrink)

The question of how to lead a happy and meaningful life has been at the heart of philosophical debate since time immemorial. Today, however, these questions seem to be addressed not by philosophers but self–help gurus, who frantically champion the individual′s quest for self–expression and self–realization; the desire to become authentic. Against these new age sophistries, How to Stop Living and Start Worrying tackles the question of ′how to live′ by forcing us to explore our troubling relationship with death. For (...) Critchley, philosophy begins with the question of finitude and with his understanding of a key classical theme – that to philosophize is to learn how to die. Learning how to accept both our own and others′ mortality as a part of life also raises the question of how to love. Critchley argues that the act of love requires us to give up something of ourselves, to lose control so as to be open to the demands of love. We will never be equal to this demand and so we are brought face to face with our own limitations – one form of which is what Critchley calls our ′originary inauthenticity′. By scrutinizing the very nature of humour, Critchley explores what we need to laugh at ourselves and presents the need to confront the inescapable ridiculousness of life. Reflecting on the work of over 20 years, this book provides a unique, witty and erudite introduction to the thought of Simon Critchley. It includes a revealing biographical conversation with Critchley and a fascinating debate with the critically acclaimed novelist Tom McCarthy about the nature of authenticity. Taken together the conversations give an intimate portrait of one of the most lucid, provocative and engaging philosophers writing today. (shrink)