For deliberations on the ethical and meta-ethical implications of Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy, here are abstracts and papers from the Ethics Section of the 6th International Whitehead Conference held at the University of Salzburg in Salzburg, Austria in July 2006. In accordance with the conference schedule, there are three subsections. The subsection on "Metaphysics of Morals and Moral Theory" includes contributions from Franklin I. Gamwell (Does Morality Presuppose God?), John W. Lango (abstract only), Duane Voskuil ("Ethics' Dipolar Necessities and (...) Theistic Implications), and Theodore Walker Jr. ("Neoclassical Cosmology and Matthew 22:36-40). The subsection on "Evaluating Moral Practices" includes contributions from Frederick Ferrè (abstract only), Seung Gap Lee (Hope for the Earth: A Process Eschatological Eco-ethics for South Korea), Mary Elizabeth Mullino Moore (Compassion, Creativity, and Form: The Ethics of Institutions), and George W. Shields (Ruse, Altruism, and Process Philosophy). The subsection on "Ethics and Aesthetic Values" includes contributions from Stephen T. Franklin (abstract only), Brian G. Henning (Is There an Ethics of Creativity?), Mihàly Tòth (Art of Life and the Ethics of Life Forming), and Guorong Yang (Problems and Perspectives in the Emerging of Global Society). (shrink)

What constitutes enjoyment of life? Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness offers a comprehensive survey of theoretical and empirical investigations of the "flow" experience, a desirable or optimal state of consciousness that enhances a person's psychic state. "Flow" can be said to occur when people are able to meet the challenges of their environment with appropriate skills, and accordingly feel a sense of well-being, a sense of mastery, and a heightened sense of self-esteem. The authors show the diverse (...) contexts and circumstances in which flow is reported in different cultures (e.g. Japan, Korea, Australia, Italy), and describe its positive emotional impacts. They reflect on the concept of flow vis-à-vis modern social structures, historical phenomena, and evolutionary biocultural selection. The ways in which the ability to experience flow affects work satisfaction, academic success, and the overall quality of life are suggested; and the childrearing practices that result in the ability to derive enjoyment from life, considered. (shrink)

The Meaning of Things explores the meanings of household possessions for three generation families in the Chicago area, and the place of materialism in American culture. Now regarded as a keystone in material culture studies, Halton's first book is based on his dissertation and coauthored with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. First published by Cambridge University Press in 1981, it has been translated into German, Italian, Japanese, and Hungarian. The Meaning of Things is a study of the significance of material possessions in contemporary (...) urban life, and of the ways people carve meaning out of their domestic environment. Drawing on a survey of eighty families in Chicago who were interviewed on the subject of their feelings about common household objects, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton provide a unique perspective on materialism, American culture, and the self. They begin by reviewing what social scientists and philosophers have said about the transactions between people and things. In the model of 'personhood' that the authors develop, goal-directed action and the cultivation of meaning through signs assume central importance. They then relate theoretical issues to the results of their survey. An important finding is the distinction between objects valued for action and those valued for contemplation. The authors compare families who have warm emotional attachments to their homes with those in which a common set of positive meanings is lacking, and interpret the different patterns of involvement. They then trace the cultivation of meaning in case studies of four families. Finally, the authors address what they describe as the current crisis of environmental and material exploitation, and suggest that human capacities for the creation and redirection of meaning offer the only hope for survival. A wide range of scholars - urban and family sociologists, clinical, developmental and environmental psychologists, cultural anthropologists and philosophers, and many general readers - will find this book stimulating and compelling. Translations: Il significato degli oggetti. Italian translation. Rome: Edizione Kappa, 1986. Der Sinn der Dinge. German translation. Munich: Psychologie Verlags Union, 1989. Japanese translation 2007. Targyaink tukreben. Hungarian translation, 2011. (shrink)

Warfare ideologies are as old as human civilization. By now, they have grown into an important and extended research field, including works analyzing the justification of war in ancient Indian epic...

We propose that Bloom's focus on cognitive factors involved in word learning still lacks a broader perspective. We emphasize the crucial relevance of working memory in learning elements of language. Specifically, we demonstrate through our data that in impaired populations knowledge of some linguistic elements can be dissociated according to the subcomponent of working memory (visual or verbal) involved in a task. Further, although Bloom's concentration on theory of mind as a precondition for word learning is certainly correct, theory of (...) mind being a necessary condition does not make it a sufficient one. On the basis of our studies we point out the importance of a theory of mind related goal preference in acquiring spatial language. In general, we claim that more specific cognitive preferences and constraints should be outlined in detail for the preconditions of acquiring linguistic elements. (shrink)

This paper takes stock of all the various factors that cause the design-time opacity of autonomous systems behaviour. The factors include embodiment effects, design-time knowledge gap, human factors, emergent behaviour and tacit knowledge. This situation is contrasted with the usual representation of moral dilemmas that assume perfect information. Since perfect information is not achievable, the traditional moral dilemma representations are not valid and the whole problem of ethical autonomous systems design proves to be way more empirical than previously understood.

This empirical paper examines individual-level cognitive factors associated with developing an orientation to sustainable development issues among a population of business practitioners from France. Across two studies, we survey 180 financial managers and 83 finance students, as well as 144 managers from other business disciplines and 117 non-finance business students. We consider ability and motivation variables integrated and adapted into a cognitive elaboration model for sustainable decision making. Specifically, we examine the degree of influence of two factors on the ethical (...) sensitivity to sustainability: the moral maturity of the individual, and the perceived moral intensity of a sustainability issue. Our investigation offers insights into how financial managers perceive the importance of sustainability for corporate strategy. (shrink)

What is the nature of the aesthetic experience? Is it the same for everyone? It is possible to facilitate its occurrence? This book focuses on the psychology of the aesthetic experience and on the perception and understanding of art, suggesting ways to raise levels of visual literacy and enhance artistic enjoyment. The findings will be of importance not only to museum professionals and art educators, but also to psychologists and those interested in the nature of the aesthetic experience.

After World War II, Hungary along with other Central-European countries drifted away from theological development of Western-Europe. Both the message and the innovations of the Second Vatican Council arrived with some delay in this country governed by the communist ideology. In spite of this, the agreement concluded between the Holy See and the Hungarian state in 1964, enabled a number of well-prepared priests to study theology at Church universities outside of Hungary. From the 1970s onwards, theological books were more easily (...) available in Hungary and, following the political change that took place in 1989, theology in Hungary began to come closer to the present theological standard of the universal Church. (shrink)

Through a detailed account of the history of online chat devices, this article shows the emergence, over time, of two distinct interactional formats underlying these social media. They may be captured by two generic metaphors of synchrony: conference (a gathering in a virtual place where unfocused interactions and group sociability occur) and copresence (where practices are centered on the sustainment of contact between individuals who know each other). Internet Relay Chat (IRC) appears as the archetype of the conference format. This (...) notion of chat involves the existence of a relatively persistent shared space—conjured up by various specific metaphors: room, channel, and so on—inside which users get together and through which they are able to find other users, with whom they may weave electronic social ties that may possibly lead to offline relationships. The other format is associated with instant messaging (IM) devices, on the model of “ICQ” software. Although there seems to be a decline in interest for devices based on the former format, those based on the latter benefit from a growing popularity, possibly indicating deeper sociological implications. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the use of effortless attention in performing daily activities and tasks. It details a study developed by The University of Chicago and Claremont Graduate University, and named the Experience Sampling Method to collect data from subjects of the study investigating the use of effortless attention in daily life. The findings are based on an ESM study of subjects consisting of middle and high school students from around the United States and the Sloan Study of Youth and (...) Social Development. The Sloan study focuses on investigating both effortful and effortless attention experiences of the subjects. A large number of students reveal how effortless attention has helped them to focus better on several tasks without much effort. (shrink)

Suggests ways to raise levels of visual literacy and enhance artistic enjoyment.

Human action and experience are the outcome of genes and memes. Not only are both of these represented in consciousness, but consciousness mediates their claims and thus governs our choices. Hence it is important how consciousness is ordered and where it is directed. Sorokin's typology of the sensate and the ideational (“spiritual”), and the dialectic between them, is relevant to this issue. In our period of history, the sensate factors of materialism and secularism need to be dialectically counterbalanced by the (...) reinforcement of memes that value the spiritual intimations of the realm beyond the senses. As we approach the twenty‐first century, the memes that will undergird our spirituality will be those that resacralize nature and emphasize our unity as humans with all of universal reality, in an idea of common “beinghood.” Spiritual systems that accord with this trend in evolution will have to respect three conditions. They will (1) integrate the sensate and the ideational; (2) reflect the importance of the “flow” state of optimal experience, which matches ever‐complexifying skills with comparable challenges; and (3) move the fulcrum of their worldview from the human being to the network of beings and its evolution. (shrink)

The title of Tihamér Margitay’s recent article “From Epistemology to Ontology” refers to a strong interpretation of Polanyi’s correspondence between knowing and being that enables ontological claims on purely epistemic grounds. I accept Margitay’s final conclusion which rejects strong correspondence, although on entirely different grounds. In addition, I point out that his treatment of Polanyi’s ontological claims about machines is based on yet unfounded assumptions about the nature of physics and technical design.

The possibility of interacting with remote services in natural language opens up new opportunities for sharing knowledge and for automating services. Easy-to-use, text-based interfaces might provide more democratic access to legal information, government services, and everyday knowledge as well. However, the methodology of engineering robust natural language interfaces is very diverse, and widely deployed solutions are still yet to come. The main contribution is a detailed problem analysis on the theoretical level, which reveals that a text-based interface is best understood (...) as an artificial agent that represents the interests of the remote party who is separated in time and space from the client. A possible ethical issue about the development of such an agent is also discussed. (shrink)

Clear evidence of large individual differences in children's performance in talent areas can be explained either in terms of innate gifts (the “talent account”) or in terms of early exposure (the “no talent account” proposed by Howe et al.). At this point, there is no conclusive support for either account, and it is doubtful that talent could be explained exclusively by only one of them.

It is said that all philosophy is nothing other than a commentary on Plato.Maybe.But was not Plato himself a commentary on Parmenides, Heraclitus, the Pythagoreans, and the Sophists, not to mention Socrates?And conversely, too, the Commentary on Aristotle composed by St Thomas was not the personal philosophy of Thomas Aquinas? Or then again, do Proclus’ Commentarii in primum Euclidis Elementorum librum not embody a new and original neoplatonic philosophy of mathematics?

In his collection of anecdotes, Lives, Opinions, and Remarkable Sayings of the Most Famous Ancient Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius devotes a chapter to the life of Zeno of Elea. Zeno's reputation is based on his celebrated paradoxes, amply discussed by Aristotle: a moving body will never reach its (pre-defined) telos, since it first has to cover half (or more than half) the remaining distance; the faster will never catch up with the slower, since it first has to get to the point (...) from which the slower has just left. Zeno's style is laconic, like that of an Aesop fable. Maxima e minimis: there is no superfluous word. Everything needed to arrive at the conclusion is explicitly stated. (shrink)

. In order to survive as a species and grow in complexity, humanity must adopt a new image of what it means to be human, rediscover a reward system beyond the merely material, and see that young people find joy in challenges and in cooperating with others.

This article focuses on therelationship between science and myth. Its author (1) suggests that the theory of evolutionpro‐vides the most powerful mythic structure for our times; (2) points out the problems that arisefrom the fact that, historically, evolution became yoked to the earlier concept of material,technological “progress”; (3) argues for an interpretation of evolution that is basedon religious and psychological models of human development; and (4) proposes that such aninterpretation, in which personal and social growth is seen as the possible (...) outcome ofevolutionary forces, may act as a corrective to a myth based on material progress. (shrink)

L'identité est l'ensemble des représentations qu'une personne a d'elle-même. L'A. définit les différentes facettes de l'identité psycho-spirituelle. •L'identité religieuse s'appuie sur l'expérience de conversion, qui est la perception intuitive de la vérité théologique que Dieu existe et qu'il a créé l'homme pour lui-même. L'expression psychologique d'une telle expérience est la prise de conscience que la direction fondamentale de l'existence humaine est l'orientation vers Dieu. •L'identité spirituelle s'appuie sur l'expérience de sa propre valeur. C'est une perception intuitive de la vérité théologique (...) que Dieu a créé chaque homme individuellement. L'A. définit aussi •L'identité ascétique, •l'identité vocationnelle, •l'identité créaturelle, •l'identité mystique. (shrink)