In recent years, Robert Adams and Richard Swinburne have developed an argument for God’s existence from the reality of mental phenomena. Call this the argument from consciousness (AC). My purpose is to develop and defend AC and to use it as a rival paradigm to critique John Searle’s biological naturalism. The article is developed in three steps. First, two issues relevant to the epistemic task of adjudicating between rival scientific paradigms (basicality and naturalness) are clarified and illustrated. Second, I (...) present a general version of AC and identify the premises most likely to come under attack by philosophical naturalists. Third, I use the insights gained in steps one and two to criticize Searle’s claim that he has developed an adequate naturalistic theory of the emergence of mental entities. I conclude that AC is superior to Searle’s biological naturalism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.3 (2003) 407 [Access article in PDF] Reply By Margaret J. Osler and Richard A. Watson In his comments on our historiographical Notes in the October 2002 issue of JHP, A. P. Martinich misrepresents our position by erroneously claiming that we presume a sharp dichotomy between the analytic history of philosophy and the historical history of philosophy. Neither of us accepts such (...) a premise. Once that misreading is eliminated there are few disagreements between each of us and Martinich.We agree that any meaningful history of philosophy must be both philosophically sophisticated and historically grounded. History without philosophy would be nothing but chronicle; history of philosophy without historical context would describe a series of moves, but explain nothing. A desideratum of both history and philosophy is careful reading, exposition, and analysis of texts.... (shrink)

With his clear and accessible prose, impeccable scholarship, and balanced Judgment, Roland Teske, SJ, has been an influential and important voice in Medieval philosophy for more than thirty years. This volume, in his honour, brings together more than a dozen essays on central metaphysical and theological themes in Augustine and other medieval thinkers. The authors, listed below, are noted scholars who draw upon Teskes work, reflect on it, go beyond it, and at times even disagree with it, but always in (...) a spirit of respectful co-operation, and always with the aim of getting at the truth. Essays on Augustine contributed by Gerald Bonner, Charles Brittain, Joseph Koterski, SJ, Joseph T. Lienhard, SJ, David Vincent Meconi, SJ, Ann A. Pang-White, Frederick Van Fleteren, Dorothea Weber, and James Wetzel. Essays on Bernard of Clairvaux, William of Auvergne, and other medieval themes contributed by John P. Doyle, William Harmless, SJ, John A. Laumakis, Edward P. Mahoney, and Philipp W. Rosemann. (shrink)

This book focuses on the political thought of American statesmen. These statesmen have had consistent and comprehensive views of the good of the country and their actions have been informed by those views. The editors argue that political life in America has been punctuated by three great crises in its history-the crisis of the Founding, the crisis of the House Divided, and the crisis of the Great Depression. The Second World War was a crisis not just for America but for (...) the whole of Western Civiliation and, in the wake of that war, a new crisis arose which came to be called the "Cold War." Just when that gave the appearance of being resolved, the world reached a new juncture, a new crisis, which Samuel P. Huntington dubbed the "clash of civiliations." The statesmen having political responsibility in confronting the first three crises in America's history came as close to philosophic grasp of the problems of liberal democracy as one could demand from those embroiled in the active resolution of events. Their reflection of political philosophy in the full sense informed their actions. Since we cannot confidently explain the future, Aristotle warned us to call no man happy while he still lives. Thus the book, in its third edition, keeps to its settled pattern of dealing with settled matters. The preface to the third edition confronts the three later crises and, to the extent consistent with truth, attempts to relate them to the first three. Morton J. Frisch was professor emeritus of political science at Northern Illinois University. He was the author or editor of several books, including Selected Writings and Speeches of Alexander Hamilton; Alexander Hamilton and the Political Order; and Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Contribution of the New Deal to American Political Thought and Practice. Richard G. Stevens retired from National Defense University as professor of political science in 1994. Since then he has taught as an adjunct professor of government at American University. He is co-editor with Matthew J. Franck of Sober as a Judge: The Supreme Court and Republican Liberty, and the author of The American Constitution and Its Provenance; Reason and History in Judicial Judgment: Felix Frankfurter and Due Process; and Political Philosophy: An Introduction. (shrink)

There has been an exponential growth in research examining the neurological basis of human cognition and learning. Little is known, however, about the extent to which sports coaches are aware of these advances. Consequently, the aim of the present study was to examine the prevalence of pseudoscientific ideas among British and Irish sports coaches. In total, 545 coaches from the United Kingdom and Ireland completed a measure that included questions about how evidence-based theories of the brain might enhance coaching and (...) learning, how they were exposed to these different theories, and their awareness of neuromyths. Results revealed that the coaches believed that an enhanced understanding of the brain helped with their planning and delivery of sports sessions. Goal-setting was the most frequently used strategy. Interestingly, 41.6% of the coaches agreed with statements that promoted neuromyths. The most prevalent neuromyth was “individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning style (e.g., auditory, visual, or kinesthetic)”, which 62% of coaches believed. It is apparent that a relatively large percentage of coaches base aspects of their coaching practice on neuromyths and other pseudoscientific ideas. Strategies for addressing this situation are briefly discussed and include changing the content of coach education programs. (shrink)

This article argues that the neoclassical era in economics has ended and is being replaced by a new era. What best characterizes the new era is its acceptance that the economy is complex, and thus that it might be called the complexity era. The complexity era has not arrived through a revolution. Instead, it has evolved out of the many strains of neoclassical work, along with work done by less orthodox mainstream and heterodox economists. It is only in its beginning (...) stages. The article discusses the work that is forming the foundation of the complexity era, and how that work will likely change the way in which we understand economic phenomena and the economics profession. (shrink)

Elephants show a rich social organization and display a number of unusual traits. In this paper, we analyse reports collected over a thirty-five year period, describing behaviour that has the potential to reveal signs of empathic understanding. These include coalition formation, the offering of protection and comfort to others, retrieving and 'babysitting' calves, aiding individuals that would otherwise have difficulty in moving, and removing foreign objects attached to others. These records demonstrate that an elephant is capable of diagnosing animacy and (...) goal directedness, and is able to understand the physical competence, emotional state and intentions of others, when they differ from its own. We argue that an empathic understanding of others is the simplest explanation of these abilities, and discuss reasons why elephants appear to show empathy more than other non-primate species. (shrink)

Asking people to discover the identity of a recognition test probe immediately before making a recognition judgment increases the probability of an old judgment. To inform theories of this “revelation effect,” event-related potentials were recorded for revealed and intact test items across two experiments. In Experiment 1, we used a revelation effect paradigm where half of the test probes were presented as anagrams and the other items were presented intact. The pattern of ERP results from this experiment suggested that revealing (...) an item decreases initial familiarity levels and caused the revealed items to elicit similar levels of activity. In Experiment 2, half of the probes were preceded by an addition task . The pattern of ERP effects in this study were distinct from those observed in Experiment 1. More specifically, revealed item ERPs were more negative than intact ERPs at frontal electrodes and more positive at parietal electrodes early in the interval. Later in the epoch, revealed item ERPs were more negative than intact items. These data suggest that related tasks decrease familiarity and alter the signal-to-noise ratio of old and new items, whereas unrelated tasks affect processing in a different way that also results in the revelation effect. The implications for current theories of the revelation effect are discussed. (shrink)

This book is about the economics profession, or more precisely, the process by which economic thinking changes. We believe that this process is important because economics is currently at a turning point; it is changing from a static approach to understanding, in which deductive reasoning is the key method used, to a complexity approach to understanding, in which inductive and deductive methods are used simultaneously, and the full complexity of the system is acknowledged and dealt with. The change is ongoing (...) and has many levels and dimensions, most of which have not coalesced to the degree that they have reached the lay public. But anyone involved in economic research recognizes the changes, although they do not necessarily understand how they all fit together. (shrink)

The first is that we are wrong to suggest that the mainstream is no longer limited to a restrictive orthodoxy of beliefs and assumptions that discourages dissenting voices. In developing his argument, Vernengo claims that our characterization of a cutting edge branch of the mainstream that does not hold to a neoclassical orthodoxy is misleading. Although he states that he accepts our characterization of the economics profession as a complex adaptive system, with many competing views, he sees the cutting edge (...) as a sham. He argues that the true role of the cutting edge is to allow the mainstream to “sound reasonable when talking about reality, while orthodoxy provides authority to the cutting edge.” He calls this an “organized hypocrisy” and calls us naive about the sociology of the economics profession. Because of this naiveté on our part he believes that we are giving bad advice to advocate that heterodox economists should think of themselves as economists first and heterodox economists second. (shrink)

We attempt to clarify divisions made by us in previous work (Colander et al., 2004a,b) between “orthodox, mainstream, and heterodox” in economics, following very useful remarks in Dequech (2007-08), whom we thank. We also provide specific advice for heterodox economists, namely: worry less about methodology, focus on being economists first and heterodox economists second, and prepare ideas to leave the incubator of heterodoxy to enter the mainstream economic debate.

This book is about the economics profession, or more precisely, the cutting edge of the economics profession. Economics is currently at a turning point; it is changing from a static approach to understanding, in which deductive reasoning is the key method used, to a complexity approach to understanding, in which inductive and deductive methods are used simultaneously, and the full complexity of the system is acknowledged and dealt with. The change is just beginning, but the groundwork is currently being laid. (...) This book is about that groundwork and those economists who are developing it. They are the cutting edge of economics. Those who are doing cutting edge work are researchers who are pushing and testing the boundaries of the profession in such a way that it draws the attention of the elite in the profession. The cutting edge has the potential of changing mainstream economics and ultimately what is considered the orthodoxy. (shrink)

Blair equates the constructs of working memory (WM), executive function, and general fluid intelligence (gF). We argue that there is good reason not to equate these constructs. We view WM and gF as separable but highly related, and suggest that the mechanism behind the relationship is controlled attention – an ability that is dependent on normal functioning of the prefrontal cortex. (Published Online April 5 2006).

Although death by neurologic criteria is legally recognized throughout the United States, state laws and clinical practice vary concerning three key issues: the medical standards used to determine death by neurologic criteria, management of family objections before determination of death by neurologic criteria, and management of religious objections to declaration of death by neurologic criteria. The American Academy of Neurology and other medical stakeholder organizations involved in the determination of death by neurologic criteria have undertaken concerted action to address variation (...) in clinical practice in order to ensure the integrity of brain death determination. To complement this effort, state policymakers must revise legislation on the use of neurologic criteria to declare death. We review the legal history and current laws regarding neurologic criteria to declare death and offer proposed revisions to the Uniform Determination of Death Act and the rationale for these recommendations. (shrink)

As the expansion of the Internet and the digital formatting of all kinds of creative works move us further into the information age, intellectual property issues have become paramount. Computer programs costing thousands of research dollars are now copied in an instant. People who would recoil at the thought of stealing cars, computers, or VCRs regularly steal software or copy their favorite music from a friend's CD. Since the Web has no national boundaries, these issues are international concerns. The contributors-philosophers, (...) legal theorists, and business scholars, among others-address questions such as: Can abstract ideas be owned? How does the violation of intellectual property rights compare to the violation of physical property rights? Can computer software and other digital information be protected? And how should legal systems accommodate the ownership of intellectual property in an information age? Intellectual Property is a lively examination of these and other issues, and an invaluable resource for librarians, lawyers, businesspeople, and scholars. (shrink)

_341_ _Objectives: _In patients with multivessel disease both the detection of the culprit lesion and the exact allocation are important preconditions for sufficient treatment and improved outcome. In a vessel based approach the combination of quantitative coronary angiography and fractional flow reserve measured by a pressure wire should be advantageous compared to myocardial SPECT, as morphological and functional information is delivered simultaneously. Therefore our aim was to evaluate MS in the detection and allocation of hemodynamically significant stenoses obtained by the (...) combined gold standard QCA plus FFR in patients with multivessel disease. _Methods: _FFR and QCA of 95 vessels in 80 patients have been evaluated. Hemodynamically significant target lesions were defined as intermediate stenoses between 50 and 75% with an FFR. (shrink)