American ginseng (_Panax quinquefolius_) is a slow-growing medicinal root native to eastern North America. Though it is possible to farm, wild ginseng can sell for twenty (or more) times as much as cultivated ginseng. Declining wild ginseng populations due to habitat loss and overharvesting has led to harvest restrictions, but strong demand for wild ginseng remains. One potential solution is “wild-simulated” ginseng, where ginseng is grown under conditions crafted to mimic a wild forest with the goal of producing roots that (...) look wild. I contend, however, that despite the fact that wild-simulated ginseng grows in a habitat actively tended and monitored by humans, is nevertheless _wild_. I explore wildness as “productive unruliness” and show how wild-simulated ginseng actively crafts wildness through management to maintain if not add complexity, to foster unpredictability, or to facilitate stress. Furthermore, the habitat that wild-simulated ginseng growers are attempting to emulate—“wild” Appalachian woodlands dominated by an assemblage of “native” plants that pre-date the arrival of Europeans in the Americas—are themselves the product of human manipulation. In Appalachia, the boundaries between the wild and the cultivated are blurred. Wild-simulated ginseng is an example of how conservation goals can be achieved by crafting “wild” environments that are not untouched, pristine wildernesses. (shrink)

One of Martin Heidegger’s enduring philosophical legacies is his overall vision of what it is to be us. We—whoever that turns out to include—are cases of Dasein, and as such we are distinctively open to entities, including others and ourselves. In this essay, I paint a picture of that openness that aims to capture why Heidegger’s vision has so powerfully gripped so many. Drawing on Heidegger’s thought both early and late, I present a synoptic view of us as open to (...) the encounter with entities' bursting forth into presencing. We can be more or less closed off to this upsurge, but we can also allow it in its full power: in philosophical and poetic openness. I draw on Borgmann, Buber, Plato’s Socrates, Rilke, and others to capture our openness at its Heideggerian best—and we ourselves at our best, showing up radiantly for encounter. (shrink)

Arguing for a pro-democratic approach in authoritarian times, this book challenges the focus on age in identifying children in child rights. It argues that, even for the purposes of a benevolent rights regime, adopting a monist construction of child identity artificially separates the law from reality, potentially foreclosing children's democratic deliberative agency in self-identification. An essential feature of other human rights regimes is the scope for a claimant to argue one's identity, or foundationally 'I am a human being;' but such (...) a contention is foreclosed when identification as a child is decided uniquely by reference to age. Drawing on Critical Race Theory's narrative method and inspired by W.E.B. DuBois' identity construction, Professor Grahn-Farley advocates a new theoretical understanding of the child and of child rights, cognisant of social interaction and democratic participation. This book will appeal to researchers in child and human rights, and to sociologists, legal theorists and activists.__This title is part of the Flip it Open programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details. (shrink)

Granted that God may exist, how may God be defined in our time? Addressing this issue Benjamin Farley explores a variety of belief systems, Western and Eastern, religious and skeptical. Taking an approach that is both critical of religion as well as sympathetic, Farley refuses to shy away from hard questions or to dismiss constructive answers that speak to the human condition. He distinguishes human "intellectual ascent" towards God from humankind's "innate and inner sense" to know and relate (...) to the living God, demonstrating the efforts and rewards of both approaches in Christianity, as well as in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Zen. Alongside these more obviously "religious" approaches, Farley reviews the methodologies and findings of today's greatest scientific minds, including skeptics such as Hawking, Dawkins, and Wilson, as well as their skeptical forerunners of the past. He argues that belief in God can no more ignore the scientific truth about the universe than science can dismiss the spiritual yearnings and hunger of humanity for purpose, meaning, and its inescapable sense of the presence of God. (shrink)

This article advances sustainability towards a new logic that favors the flourishing of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and well-being from North to South. It presents a Global Dual-Perspective (GDP) and a Dynamic Equilibrium Framework (DEF) that inform sustainability, management, and international business with a paradoxical view of the SDGs and a strengthened analysis that outlines the role of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in addressing the SDGs within and across the North–South. This article reveals that organizations will effectively unleash virtuous cycles of (...) SDGs and well-being when confronting and juxtaposing environmental, health, social, economic, and law-oriented goals. Furthermore, virtuous cycles will be more successful when splitting and integrating short- and long-term conflicting goals within and across the North–South to fuel systemic resilience and sustainable development. (shrink)

Although the principle of fair subject selection is a widely recognized requirement of ethical clinical research, it often yields conflicting imperatives, thus raising major ethical dilemmas regarding participant selection. In this paper, we diagnose the source of this problem, arguing that the principle of fair subject selection is best understood as a bundle of four distinct sub-principles, each with normative force and each yielding distinct imperatives: (1) fair inclusion; (2) fair burden sharing; (3) fair opportunity; and (4) fair distribution of (...) third-party risks. We first map out these distinct sub-principles, and then identify the ways in which they yield conflicting imperatives for the design of inclusion and exclusion criteria, and the recruitment of participants. We then offer guidance for how decision makers should navigate these conflicting imperatives to ensure that participants are selected fairly. (shrink)

We present a computational model of dialectical argumentation that could serve as a basis for legal reasoning. The legal domain is an instance of a domain in which knowledge is incomplete, uncertain, and inconsistent. Argumentation is well suited for reasoning in such weak theory domains. We model argument both as information structure, i.e., argument units connecting claims with supporting data, and as dialectical process, i.e., an alternating series of moves by opposing sides. Our model includes burden of proof as a (...) key element, indicating what level of support must be achieved by one side to win the argument. Burden of proof acts as move filter, turntaking mechanism, and termination criterion, eventually determining the winner of an argument. Our model has been implemented in a computer program. We demonstrate the model by considering program output for two examples previously discussed in the artificial intelligence and legal reasoning literature. (shrink)

Recently, researchers on organization theory and behavior were challenged by the introduction of cognitive machines in the list of the organization’s participants. Researchers in this field advocated that cognitive machines contribute to improve cognitive abilities in the organization by extending people’s rationality and decision-making capacity and by reducing intra-individual and group dysfunctional conflicts. This paper supports these findings and extends their results to upper layers at managerial and organizational levels of application by proposing the concept of new industrial organizations with (...) structure and processes of Computational Organization Management Networks. In such a new organization type, cognitive machines and cognitive information systems are prominent actors of governance, automation, and control of the whole enterprise. (shrink)

Humans and organizations have limitations of computational capacity and information management. Such constraints are synonymous with bounded rationality. Therefore, in order to extend the human and organizational boundaries to more advanced models of cognition, this research proposes concepts of cognitive machines in organizations. From a micro point of view, what makes this research distinct is that, beyond people, it includes in the list of participants of the organization the cognitive machines. From a macro point of view, this paper relies on (...) the premise that cognitive machines can improve the cognitive abilities of the organization. From such perspectives, it presents rationale and principles of a class of cognitive machines with capabilities to carry out complex cognitive tasks in organizations. It also introduces analyses of the cognitive machines in organizations through theories of bounded rationality, economic decision-making, and conflict resolution. The analyses indicate that these machines can solve or reduce intra-individual and group dysfunctional conflicts which arise from decision-making processes in the organization, and thus they can improve the degree of organizational cognition. From all these backgrounds, this research outlines implications of cognitive machines for organizations. (shrink)

En el siglo XX y en especial en este momento de transición, algunos artistas han retomado los hechos históricos y en varios casos los horrores de la humanidad para plantearse preguntas sobre el hombre del hoy y del mañana. En el artículo se planteará una reflexión particular, exponiendo la relación entre las artes escénicas y los conflictos humanos, políticos y sociales. Adicionalmente se expondrá la recreación de hechos históricos, temas y personajes, como base para la reflexión y la renovación de (...) la esperanza y de la memoria. (shrink)

How do things persist? Are material objects spread out through time just as they are spread out through space? Or is temporal persistence quite different from spatial extension? This key question lies at the heart of any metaphysical exploration of the material world, and it plays a crucial part in debates about personal identity and survival. This book explores and compares three theories of persistence — endurance, perdurance, and stage theories — investigating the ways in which they attempt to account (...) for the world around us. Having provided valuable clarification of its two main rivals, the book concludes by advocating stage theory. Such a basic issue about the nature of the physical world naturally has close ties with other central philosophical problems. This book includes discussions of change and parthood, of how we refer to material objects at different times, of the doctrine of Humean supervenience, and of the modal features of material things. In particular, it contains new accounts of the nature of worldly vagueness, and of what binds material things together over time, distinguishing the career of a natural object from an arbitrary sequence of events. Each chapter concludes with a reflection about the impact of these metaphysical debates upon questions about our personal identity and survival. (shrink)

Stereotypes sometimes lead us to make poor judgements of other people, but they also have the potential to facilitate quick, efficient, and accurate judgements. How can we discern whether any individual act of stereotyping will have the positive or negative effect? How Stereotypes Deceive Us addresses this question. It identifies various factors that determine whether or not the application of a stereotype to an individual in a specific context will facilitate or impede correct judgements and perceptions of the individual. It (...) challenges the thought that stereotyping only and always impedes correct judgement when the stereotypes that are applied are inaccurate, failing to reflect social realities. It argues instead that stereotypes that reflect social realities can lead to misperceptions and misjudgements, and that inaccurate but egalitarian social attitudes can therefore facilitate correct judgements and accurate perceptions. The arguments presented in this book have important implications for those who might engage in stereotyping and those who are at risk of being stereotyped. They have implications for those who work in healthcare and those who have mental health conditions. How Stereotypes Deceive Us provides a new conceptual framework-evaluative dispositionalism-that captures the epistemic faults of stereotypes and stereotyping, providing conceptual resources that can be used to improve our own thinking by avoiding the pitfalls of stereotyping, and to challenge other people's stereotyping where it is likely to lead to misperception and misjudgement. (shrink)

The American Society for Bioethics and Humanities has created a quality attestation process for clinical ethics consultants; the pilot phase of reviewing portfolios has begun. One aspect of the QA process which is particularly challenging is assessing the interpersonal skills of individual clinical ethics consultants. We propose that using case simulation to evaluate clinical ethics consultants is an approach that can meet this need provided clear standards for assessment are identified. To this end, we developed the Assessing Clinical Ethics Skills (...) tool, which identifies and specifies specific behaviors that a clinical ethics consultant should demonstrate in an ethics case simulation. The aim is for the clinical ethics consultant or student to use a videotaped case simulation, along with the ACES tool scored by a trained rater, to demonstrate their competence as part of their QA portfolio. The development and piloting of the tool is described. (shrink)

Perceptual grouping has traditionally been thought to be governed by innate, universal principles. However, recent work has found differences in Japanese and English speakers' non-linguistic perceptual grouping, implicating language in non-linguistic perceptual processes (Iversen, Patel, & Ohgushi, 2008). Two experiments test Japanese- and English-learning infants of 5-6 and 7-8 months of age to explore the development of grouping preferences. At 5-6 months, neither the Japanese nor the English infants revealed any systematic perceptual biases. However, by 7-8 months, the same age (...) as when linguistic phrasal grouping develops, infants developed non-linguistic grouping preferences consistent with their language's structure (and the grouping biases found in adulthood). These results reveal an early difference in non-linguistic perception between infants growing up in different language environments. The possibility that infants' linguistic phrasal grouping is bootstrapped by abstract perceptual principles is discussed. (shrink)

In their article on the limited duty to reinterpret genetic variants, Watts and Newson argue that clinical labs are not morally obligated to conduct routine reinterpretation despite its potential clinical and personal value.1 We endorse the authors’ argument for a circumscribed duty to reclassify genomic variants in certain cases, including to promote diagnostic equity for racial and ethnic minority populations that have been historically excluded from and exploited by genomic research and medicine. However, given the history and resilience of scientific (...) racism, the use of socially constructed racial and ethnic categories to enhance diagnostic equity raises several ethical and practical challenges. In the short term, using socially constructed racial and ethnic categories to identify patients for variant reclassification is a practical approach for addressing concerns of diagnostic equity. In contrast, diagnostic accuracy depends on patients’ genetic similarity to reference genomes, rather than their socially determined race or ethnicity.2 Thus, in the long term, securing both diagnostic equity and diagnostic accuracy through targeted variant reclassification will require a shift away from relying on race and ethnicity and towards assessing genetic similarity. Critically, the identification of patients for genomic variant reclassification using socially constructed race or ethnicity runs the risk of perpetuating the harmful …. (shrink)

It has been argued that humans can face an ethical/epistemic dilemma over the automatic stereotyping involved in implicit bias: ethical demands require that we consistently treat people equally, as equally likely to possess certain traits, but if our aim is knowledge or understanding our responses should reflect social inequalities meaning that members of certain social groups are statistically more likely than others to possess particular features. I use psychological research to argue that often the best choice from the epistemic perspective (...) is the same as the best choice from the ethical perspective: to avoid automatic stereotyping even when this involves failing to reflect social realities in our judgements. This argument has an important implication: it shows that it is not possible to successfully defend an act of automatic stereotyping simply on the basis that the stereotype reflects an aspect of social reality. An act of automatic stereotyping can be poor from an epistemic perspective even if the stereotype that is activated reflects reality. (shrink)

What is epistemic self-trust? There is a tension in the way in which prominent accounts answer this question. Many construe epistemic trust in oneself as no more than reliance on our sub-personal cognitive faculties. Yet many accounts – often the same ones – construe epistemic trust in others as a normatively laden attitude directed at persons whom we expect to care about our epistemic needs. Is epistemic self-trust really so different from epistemic trust in others? I argue that it is (...) not. We certainly do rely on our cognitive faculties to achieve epistemic ends; but I argue that we also have the normatively rich sort of epistemic trust in ourselves. Moreover, there is a theoretical need for this normatively rich notion of epistemic self-trust: positing it yields the best account of how we secure important epistemic goods, including knowledge and recognition as knowers. I argue this by giving an account of epistemic trust in others and showing that it can be generalized to epistemic trust in oneself. (shrink)

Research on value congruence rests on the assumption that values denote desirable behaviors and ideals that employees and organizations strive to approach. In the present study, we develop and test the argument that a more complete understanding of value congruence can be achieved by considering a second type of congruence based on employees’ and organizations’ counter-ideal values. We examined this proposition in a time-lagged study of 672 employees from various occupational and organizational backgrounds. We used difference scores as well as (...) polynomial regression and response surface analyses to test our hypotheses. Consistent with our hypotheses, results reveal that counter-ideal value congruence has unique relations to employees’ trust in the organization that go beyond the effects of ideal value congruence. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of this expanded perspective on value congruence. (shrink)

Findings from the cognitive sciences suggest that the cognitive mechanisms responsible for some memory errors are adaptive, bringing benefits to the organism. In this paper we argue that the same cognitive mechanisms also bring a suite of significant epistemic benefits, increasing the chance of an agent obtaining epistemic goods like true belief and knowledge. This result provides a significant challenge to the folk conception of memory beliefs that are false, according to which they are a sign of cognitive frailty, indicating (...) that a person is less reliable than others or their former self. Evidence of memory errors can undermine a person’s view of themselves as a competent epistemic agent, but we show that false memory beliefs can be the result of the ordinary operation of cognitive mechanisms found across the species, which bring substantial epistemic benefits. This challenge to the folk conception is not adequately captured by existing epistemological theories. However, it can be captured by the notion of epistemic innocence, which has previously been deployed to highlight how beliefs which have epistemic costs can also bring significant epistemic benefits. We therefore argue that the notion of epistemic innocence should be expanded so that it applies not just to beliefs but also to cognitive mechanisms. (shrink)

As the field of clinical ethics consultation sets standards and moves forward with the Quality Attestation process, questions should be raised about what ethical issues really do arise in practice. There is limited data on the type and number of ethics consultations conducted across different settings. At Loyola University Medical Center, we conducted a retrospective review of our ethics consultations from 2008 through 2013. One hundred fifty-six cases met the eligibility criteria. We analyzed demographic data on these patients and conducted (...) a content analysis of the ethics consultation write-ups coding both the frequency of ethical issues and most significant, or key, ethical issue per case. Patients for whom ethics consultation was requested were typically male, white, between 50 and 69 years old, of non-Hispanic origin, and of Roman Catholic faith. Nearly half were in the intensive care unit and 44.2 % died in the hospital. The most frequent broad ethical categories were decision-making, goals of care/treatment, and end-of-life. More specifically, capacity, patient’s wishes/autonomy, and surrogate decision maker were the most frequent particular ethical issues. The most common key ethical issues were withdrawing/withholding treatment, patient wishes/autonomy, and capacity. Our findings provide additional data to inform the training of clinical ethics consultants regarding the ethical issues that arise in practice. A wider research agenda should be formed to collect and compare data across institutions to improve education and training in our field. (shrink)

What is Heidegger talking about when he says that being conceals itself? This is the first study to systematically address that question. Katherine Withy analyses texts from across Heidegger's philosophical career and sorts the various phenomena of concealing and concealment that Heideggerdiscusses into a highly-structured taxonomy. The taxonomy clarifies the relationships and differences between such phenomena as lethe, the nothing, earth, excess, the backgrounding of the world, and un-truth, as well as speaking falsely, talking idly, secrets, mysteries, seeming, andinauthentic (...) discovering. But in relating and differentiating these phenomena, the taxonomy shows that none of them is the self-concealing of being.Having established what the self-concealing of being is not, Withy establishes what it is. She argues that being conceals itself in that it shows up to us as lacking the sorts of contrast cases that render entities determinate and intelligible. This novel and powerful interpretation of theself-concealing of being explains why the secondary literature to date has discussed it in vague and metaphorical terms, as well as why Heidegger tends to collapse being's self-concealing into the concealment of lethe. Withy's interpretation is both a clarification of and a corrective to Heidegger'snotoriously difficult and sometimes misleading discussions of being as self-concealing. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare systemic inequities shaped by social determinants of health (SDoH). Public health agencies, legislators, health systems, and community organizations took notice, and there is currently unprecedented interest in identifying and implementing programs to address SDoH. This special issue focuses on the role of medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) in addressing SDoH and racial and social inequities, as well as the need to support these efforts with evidence-based research, data, and meaningful partnerships and funding.

This article draws from Hannah Arendt's theory of “inter-est” to formulate a model of coalition discourse that can coarticulate difference and commonality and approach them as mutually nourishing conditions rather than as polarities. By disrupting the normative fantasies of unified, a priori subjectivity and universal truth, interest-based discourse facilitates political interactions that neither rely on sameness nor reify difference to the exclusion of connection.

B a c k g r o u n d. Deng Xiaoping is considered the main architect of socialist reforms and the founder of China's modernization theory. He mastered and developed the socialist system, trying to adjust it to the national conditions of China. Deng Xiaoping believed that it was by following the course of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" that China would transform from a poor country into a highly developed one. The article provides a theoretical reconstruction of the main (...) content of Deng Xiaoping's concept of "socialism with Chinese characteristics." The main philosophical and socio-political aspects of the concept of building socialism with Chinese characteristics are presented in a systematic form in the context of the foundations of Chineseization of Marxism. M e t h o d s. In the article, a historical-logical approach was used to reveal the specified research topic, which allowed us to determine the socio-political prerequisites for the emergence of Chineseized Marxism. An interdisciplinary approach made it possible to carry out a theoretical analysis of social, economic, and political changes in modern China, which were caused by the proposed theory of Deng Xiaoping's "socialism with Chinese characteristics". Systemic, structural-functional, and constructivist methods, as well as methods of synthesis and generalization, were also applied. R e s u l t s. Because of the above, the purpose of this study was to carry out a theoretical reconstruction of Deng Xiaoping's theory of building "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and to find out how his ideas influenced the development of modern China after the completion of the "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution" of Mao Zedong. The key features of Deng Xiaoping's proposed theory of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" were established, including the idea of democratization of society and implementation of the legal basis of state functioning; the beginning of a new period of "reforms and openness"; determining the course for socialist modernization; following Marxism-Leninism and the ideas of Mao Zedong. C o n c l u s i o n s. In conclusion, it can be noted that the main feature of Deng Xiaoping's ideas was that they were inextricably linked with the national and cultural traditions of Chinese civilization, starting from Confucianism and the gradual synthesis with Marxist ideology. Evaluating the theory of Deng Xiaoping, it can be defined as a relatively complete scientific system that covers the fields of philosophy, political economy, and scientific socialism, it contains the doctrine of socialist ideology, and the doctrine of the essence and ways of socialist development, theories of the reform of socialist political and economic systems, the theory of building a socialist country. (shrink)

There are moments when things suddenly seem strange - objects in the world lose their meaning, we feel like strangers to ourselves, or human existence itself strikes us as bizarre and unintelligible. Through a detailed philosophical investigation of Heidegger's concept of uncanniness (Unheimlichkeit), Katherine Withy explores what such experiences reveal about us. She argues that while others (such as Freud, in his seminal psychoanalytic essay, 'The Uncanny') take uncanniness to be an affective quality of strangeness or eeriness, Heidegger uses (...) the concept to go beyond feeling uncanny to reach the ground of this feeling in our being uncanny. -/- "Heidegger on Being Uncanny" answers those who wonder whether human existence is fundamentally strange to itself by showing that we can be what we are only if we do not fully understand what it is to be us. This fundamental finitude in our self-understanding is our uncanniness. In this first dedicated interpretation of Heidegger's uncanniness, Withy tracks this concept from his early analyses of angst through his later interpretations of the choral ode from Sophocles's Antigone. Her interpretation uncovers a novel and robust continuity in Heidegger's thought and in his vision of the human being as uncanny, and it points the way toward what it is to live well as an uncanny human being. (shrink)

Highlighting main issues and controversies, this book brings together current philosophical discussions of symmetry in physics to provide an introduction to the subject for physicists and philosophers. The contributors cover all the fundamental symmetries of modern physics, such as CPT and permutation symmetry, as well as discussing symmetry-breaking and general interpretational issues. Classic texts are followed by new review articles and shorter commentaries for each topic. Suitable for courses on the foundations of physics, philosophy of physics and philosophy of science, (...) the volume is a valuable reference for students and researchers. (shrink)

Du Châtelet’s 1740 text Foundations of Physics tackles three of the major foundational issues facing natural philosophy in the early eighteenth century: the problem of bodies, the problem of force, and the question of appropriate methodology. This paper offers an introduction to Du Châtelet’s philosophy of science, as expressed in her Foundations of Physics, primarily through the lens of the problem of bodies.

Katherine Hawley explores and compares three theories of persistence -- endurance, perdurance, and stage theories - investigating the ways in which they attempt to account for the world around us. Having provided valuable clarification of its two main rivals, she concludes by advocating stage theory.

Symmetry considerations dominate modern fundamental physics, both in quantum theory and in relativity. Philosophers are now beginning to devote increasing attention to such issues as the significance of gauge symmetry, quantum particle identity in the light of permutation symmetry, how to make sense of parity violation, the role of symmetry breaking, the empirical status of symmetry principles, and so forth. These issues relate directly to traditional problems in the philosophy of science, including the status of the laws of nature, the (...) relationships between mathematics, physical theory, and the world, and the extent to which mathematics suggests new physics.This entry begins with a brief description of the historical roots and emergence of the concept of symmetry that is at work in modern science. It then turns to the application of this concept to physics, distinguishing between two different uses of symmetry: symmetry principles versus symmetry arguments. It mentions the different varieties of physical symmetries, outlining the ways in which they were introduced into physics. Then, stepping back from the details of the various symmetries, it makes some remarks of a general nature concerning the status and significance of symmetries in physics. (shrink)

Gatekeeping, or determining membership of your group, is crucial to science: the moniker ‘scientific’ is a stamp of epistemic quality or even authority. But gatekeeping in science is fraught with dangers. Gatekeepers must exclude bad science, science fraud and pseudoscience, while including the disagreeing viewpoints on which science thrives. This is a difficult tightrope, not least because gatekeeping is a human matter and can be influenced by biases such as groupthink. After spelling out these general tensions around gatekeeping in science, (...) we shed light on them with a case study from psychology. This concerns whether academic psychologists rightly or wrongly classify the applied-psychology framework of NLP (‘neuro-linguistic programming’) as unscientific and even pseudoscientific. This example of gatekeeping is particularly instructive because both the NLP community and the psychology community, we argue, make legitimate but also illegitimate moves. This case gives rise to several general insights about gatekeeping in science more generally. (shrink)

Several prominent debates in biology, such as those surrounding adaptationism, group selection, and punctuated equilibrium, have focused on disagreements about the relative importance of a cause in producing a phenomenon of interest. Some philosophers, such as John Beatty have expressed scepticism about the scientific value of engaging in these controversies, and Karen Kovaka has suggested that their value might be limited. In this paper, I challenge that scepticism by giving a novel analysis of relative significance controversies, showing that there are (...) three forms they can take. I argue that these controversies can have significant epistemic upshots, in that they help scientists form predictions about new instances of the phenomenon of interest. Finally, using two historical examples, I show how engaging in these controversies can improve our understanding of causal relationships. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Psychedelics, including psilocybin, and other consciousness-altering compounds such as 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), currently are being scientifically investigated for their potential therapeutic uses, with a primary focus on measurable outcomes: for example, alleviation of symptoms or increases in self-reported well-being. Accordingly, much recent discussion about the possible value of these substances has turned on estimates of the magnitude and duration of persisting positive effects in comparison to harms. However, many have described the value of a psychedelic experience with little or no reference (...) to such therapeutic benefits, instead seeming to find the experience valuable in its own right. How can we make sense of such testimony? Could a psychedelic experience be valuable even if there were no persisting beneficial effects? If so, how? Using the concept of psychological richness, combined with insights from the philosophy of aesthetics and the enhancement literature, this essay explores potential sources of value in the acute subjective experience, apart from the value derived from persisting beneficial effects. (shrink)

Fear generalisation is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when fear that is elicited in response to a frightening stimulus spreads to similar or related stimuli. The practical harms of pathological fear generalisation related to trauma are well-documented, but little or no attention has been given so far to its epistemic harms. This paper fills this gap in the literature. It shows how the psychological phenomenon, when it becomes pathological, substantially curbs the epistemic agency of those who experience the fear that (...) generalizes, limiting their ability to respond to evidence, and substantially limiting their epistemic horizons. It is argued that when these epistemic harms are caused by wrongful actions and decisions of individuals or institutions, because the fear is elicited in response to a traumatic experience inflicted by them, the harms should be considered epistemic wrongs. The epistemic wrongs are closely akin to agential epistemic injustice, a variety of distributive epistemic injustice, and sometimes also involve epistemic exclusion. The paper thereby identifies a previously underexplored psychological mechanism that can be a vehicle through which both individuals and institutions can epistemically wrong others. The argument has implications for how both epistemic wrongs and epistemic injustice should be conceived, suggesting that both can occur without being caused by primarily epistemic flaws or errors, or a bad epistemic character. Finally, it highlights the advantage of taking a victim-centred approach to understanding epistemic harm. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 29, Issue 4, Page 712-730, December 2021.