Research on the cognitive consequences of bilingualism typically proceeds by labeling participants as “monolingual” or “bilingual” and comparing performance on some measures across these groups. It is well-known that this approach has led to inconsistent results. However, the approach assumes that there are clear criteria to designate individuals as monolingual or bilingual, and more fundamentally, to determine whether a communication system counts as a unique language. Both of these assumptions may not be correct. The problem is particularly acute when participants (...) are asked to classify themselves or simply report how many languages they speak. Participants' responses to these questions are shaped by their personal perceptions of the criteria for making these judgments. This study investigated the perceptions underlying judgments of bilingualism by asking 528 participants to judge the extent to which a description of a fictional linguistic system constitutes a unique language and the extent to which a description of a fictional individual's linguistic competence qualifies that person as bilingual. The results show a range of responses for both concepts, indicating substantial ambiguity for these terms. Moreover, participants were asked to self-classify as monolingual or bilingual, and these decisions were not related to more objective information regarding the degree of bilingual experience obtained from a detailed questionnaire. These results are consistent with the notion that bilingualism is not categorical and that specific language experiences are important in determining the criteria for being bilingual. The results impact interpretations of research investigating group differences on the cognitive effects of bilingualism. (shrink)

Researchers have recently begun to question the specificity and reliability of conflict adaptation effects, also known as sequential congruency effects, a highly cited effect in cognitive psychology. Some have even used the lack of reliability across tasks to argue against models of cognitive control that have dominated the field for decades. The present study tested the possibility that domain-general processes across tasks might appear on more sensitive mouse-tracking metrics rather than overall reaction times. The relationship between SCE effects on the (...) Stroop and Flanker tasks were examined for the first time using a mouse-tracking paradigm. Three main findings emerged: Robust SCEs were observed for both the Stroop and Flanker tasks at the group level, Within-task split-half reliabilities for the SCE across dependent variables were weak at best and non-existent in many cases, and SCEs for the Flanker and Stroop tasks did not correlate with each other for overall reaction times, but did show significant correlations between tasks on more dynamic measures that captured processes before response execution. These findings contribute to the literature by highlighting how mouse-tracking may be a fruitful avenue by which future studies can examine the specificity and reliability of conflict adaptation and tease apart different theoretical models producing the effects. (shrink)

Trust and trustworthiness are central concepts in contemporary discussions about the ethics of and qualities associated with artificial intelligence (AI) and the relationships between people, organisations and AI. In this article we develop an interdisciplinary approach, using socio-technical software engineering and design anthropological approaches, to investigate how trust and trustworthiness concepts are articulated and performed by AI software practitioners. We examine how trust and trustworthiness are defined in relation to AI across these disciplines, and investigate how AI, trust and trustworthiness (...) are conceptualised and experienced through an ethnographic study of the work practices of nine practitioners in the software industry. We present key implications of our findings for the generation of trust and trustworthiness and for the training and education of future software practitioners. (shrink)

Attention has recently been proposed as the mechanism underlying the cognitive effects associated with bilingualism. However, similar to bilingualism, the term attention is complex, dynamic, and can vary from one activity to another. Throughout our daily lives, we use different types of attention that differ in complexity: sustained attention, selective attention, alternating attention, divided attention, and disengagement of attention. The present paper is a focused review summarizing the results from studies that explore the link between bilingualism and attention. For each (...) level of attention, a brief overview of relevant theoretical models will be discussed along with a spotlight on paradigms and tasks used to measure these forms of attention. The findings illustrate that different types and levels of attention are modified by the variety of bilingual experiences. Future studies wishing to examine the effects of bilingualism on attention are encouraged to embrace the complexity and diversity of both constructs rather than making global claims about bilingualism and attention. (shrink)

John Martin Fischer is one of the leading proponents of semi-compatibilism, one of the ideas proposed in the debates on free will and determinism. According to him, even if it is not possible to make a free choice once determinism is accepted, persons can be held morally responsible for their actions. Thus, the ability to choose one of several alternatives, i.e. to act otherwise, is not necessary for moral responsibility. In his translated article Responsibility and Inevitability, Fischer sketches an (...) outline of a theory of moral responsibility that explains how persons are responsible for their actions, for the actions they do not perform (omissions), and for the consequences of their actions or omissions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy after ChristJohn O'CallaghanConsider the words of Justin Martyr written in the middle of the second century after the birth of Christ and after Justin's conversion to Christianity:Philosophy is indeed one's greatest possession, and is most precious in the sight of God, to whom it alone leads us and to whom it unites us, and in truth they who have applied themselves to philosophy are holy men.1In addition to (...) the praise heaped upon the philosophers, among whom Justin had counted himself before his conversion,2 the text is one of the earliest pieces of evidence for the historical reality of Christian intellectual engagement with pagan or secular philosophy. Whether that engagement proved spiritually fruitful or sterile in any particular age or any particular tradition of philosophy, Christian intellectuals have often sought out engagement with philosophy as an inherent task of the intellectual life of the Church, in order to pursue and develop the understanding of Christian revelation and the mode of life informed by it. One lasting result of the impetus represented by Justin is to be found even now in the normative requirement in Catholic education that, at a certain stage of development, anyone who receives a [End Page 49] serious Catholic education must be introduced to serious philosophical reflection on where we came from, what we are, and where we are born to go.In addition, one of the general points John Henry Newman made in The Idea of a University is that the human mind looks for unity in the diversity of intellectual disciplines it pursues. In search of this unity, it seeks a kind of primary discipline that takes into account the truths discovered throughout the other disciplines as it seeks to understand what it can of the whole of reality, not just its parts. But Newman also pointed out that, in the absence of such a unifying discipline, practitioners of each particular discipline will often claim for their particular discipline the prize of being primary—of being the discipline by which all others must be understood and judged.3Take classical and modern physics. A familiar claim of some physicists, but even more so of non-physicist physicalists, is that physics is the fundamental intellectual discipline for understanding what is real. All reality, living reality, historical reality, moral reality, indeed perhaps even literary reality, must be reduced to reality as described by the physicists or rejected as unreal or epiphenomenal, or in a kinder, gentler vein, non-reductively emergent and supervenient. Whichever position is taken, whether reduction, non-reductive emergence, or epiphenomenalism, the thought is that the real work of the really real is done by reality as described by physics, either in its actual contemporary state or, more likely, in an idealized future state always on the horizon of where physics presently is. We are really atoms spinning ceaselessly in the void, mostly empty space, the warp and woof of a four-dimensional space-time manifold, or congeries of strings in an even more bizarre thirteen-dimensional manifold, or whatever was said most recently to surpass what was said before that by the leading physicists in California or Cambridge.However, anyone who has actually practiced physics knows that, even when uttered by a physicist, these are not claims of physics, but about physics. What prompts them is the sense that there is no intellectual discipline other than contemporary physics itself that can both understand the achievements of physics and integrate them into a larger intellectual comprehension of reality as a whole. These claims about physics nicely display Newman's point about the way in which a particular discipline, in the absence of a larger more comprehensive discipline, can take on an importance for its practitioners well beyond its disciplinary limits. [End Page 50]In the case of physics, if a more comprehensive unifying discipline is not to be found, this attitude is not entirely unjustified, for Newman's point is partly Aristotelian. Aristotle had pointed out that, if one cannot show that unchangeable, and thus non-physical beings, exist, then what Aristotle called "first philosophy" would just be physics as he understood it, the science of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Are There Failed Persons?John O'CallaghanIntroductionAre there failed persons? Yes. However, before explaining what a failed person is, it will be good to consider closely a very significant part of our society to get a sense of what it thinks a failed person is, since my account of what a failed person is is markedly different. It is important to think about the question of failed persons because there (...) are growing movements here and abroad aimed at killing by medical means human beings who are judged in some sense to be failed persons, human beings who do not count as persons according to a common societal notion of persons, a social-psychological notion of persons.The question for anyone who lives within this society with its notion of failed persons is whether one will take part in and support this movement toward killing human beings or avoid it, indeed whether one will push back against it. It is easy enough to fall into a trap of thinking about failed persons the way much of our society does. One's complicity in adopting the social-psychological notion of person contributes to enabling the acceptance of such killing, even if one believes one would never perform the killing act. My effort here is precisely to push back against such killing, by pushing back against the notion of persons that animates it.The killing of human beings by our society is not simply confined to abortion, as it has been legally and widely available here in the United States for almost fifty years now. Recent political discussions in the wake of the Dobbs decision have made it clear that many political leaders think such killing ought to be allowed all the way up until birth, and perhaps after. Relatively [End Page 1123] recently there was an article in a mainstream bioethics journal by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva arguing that what most people would take to be cases of infanticide should be renamed, per their title, "After-Birth Abortion."1 The article was not about the moral legitimacy of either infanticide or abortion. The moral legitimacy of those acts for various reasons was taken as a given by the authors. In the case of euthanizing infants, they noted the expanding number of arguments for it among philosophers, the desire for guidelines for doing it among members of the medical profession, and the protocols for it established in places like the Netherlands.The authors argued that in the case of newborns, including healthy newborns, killing them should not be considered infanticide or euthanasia.2 They distinguished abortion from both euthanasia and infanticide. Euthanasia involves killing a human person, where a person is understood to be a being that can experience itself as having interests that can be harmed. "We take 'person' to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her."3 Euthanasia, when justified, is justified by being in the best "interests" of the person killed. Infanticide involves euthanizing children.However, the authors claim that a newborn is not a person in the sense of "person" specified. So, the authors' term "after-birth abortion" is a terminological distinction based upon denying that a newborn is a child, children being persons. They also assume that infants are children as they understand "child." So not being a child, a newborn cannot be an infant. Not being an infant, killing it cannot be infanticide or euthanasia, again as the authors define those terms.4 Instead, killing the newborns, healthy or not, should be thought of as having the same moral weight as an abortion before birth, and thus rather than being called infanticide or euthanasia, it should be called "after-birth abortion."5Killing a newborn then is "ethically permissible" in just the same circumstances and for the same reasons as abortion is ethically permissible. Among [End Page 1124] the "ethically permissible" circumstances for killing newborns, including perfectly healthy newborns, are that the "well-being of the family is at risk" with respect to "social, psychological, economic" factors,6 but also the fact... (shrink)

In African society today, ubuntu as a notion of African humanism has been, and still is, subject to critical discussion. In African literature, philosophy, ethics, anthropology and theology, ubuntu plays a vast role and scholars in Africa and globally find the notion highly debated. The concept of identity development on the African continent has been written about broadly. This article unpacks the ubuntu philosophies of Augustine Shutte, Kwame Gyekye and John Mbiti. The views of these scholars will be contrasted (...) to critically engage the conceivable commonalities for identity development through cultures. The question addressed herein is: What are the similarities and dissimilarities of ubuntu as a cornerstone for identity development in modern Africa? This article also examines the divergent definition and historical development of ubuntu culture, ubuntu philosophy of identity development, environmental development and various thinkers’ understanding of this African worldview in current Africa and further afield. Contribution: This research contributes to African theological ethics of the new landscape identity and explores the ubuntu worldviews as a developmental process of identities across cultures. Since identity development across cultures is highly dynamic, the hermeneutical interpretation of the principles of ubuntu is crucial. (shrink)

Arguments are weakly meta-argumentative when they call attention to themselves and purport to be successful as arguments. Arguments are strongly metaargumentative when they take arguments (themselves or other arguments) as objects for evaluation, clarification, or improvement and explicitly use concepts of argument analysis for the task. The ambitious meta-argumentation thesis is that all argumentation is weakly argumentative. The modest meta-argumentation thesis is that there are unique instances of strongly meta-argumentative argument. Here, we show how the two theses are connected and (...) both are plausible. (shrink)

What makes ethical accounts natural law ethical is, I argue, commonly misrepresented in teaching within much of the philosophical academy. Yet those immersed in the field of natural law and ethics rarely give definitions/brief characterisations of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical. I suggest theoretical reasons for the lack. I argue that bringing natural law into ethics is best understood as leading to theoretically unitary accounts, not simply collections of positions detachable from each other: an overlooked and significant point (...) when defending natural law ethical accounts. My arguments throughout rely on the metaethical/normative ethical distinction, which is relatively little used in the natural law literature. I argue that the distinction helps clarify what is distinctive of natural law ethical accounts in general, especially to the secular contemporary philosophical academy, where appreciation of natural law ethical accounts is commonly appreciably lower than in philosophical contexts with a religious ethos. (shrink)

The claim that religion is inherently prone to violence is a commonplace of contemporary thought along with the associated idea that the non-religious are much less prone to resort to violence. Some form of this claim is a factor in attempts to place restrictions on the role of religion in liberal democratic societies. This paper argues that the commonplace claim is confused in several different ways and that while religion is sometimes a component in a complex mix that can produce (...) violence it is often a less significant factor than others in that mix, and otherwise it is often enough causally irrelevant to disturbing outbreaks of violence, including political disturbances. So, when considering the high degree of premature, indiscriminate, ill-judged or fanatical violence that human beings are prone to, we need to examine the causes in cultural and psychological terms without a presiding bias in favour of one element alone. (shrink)

This essay argues that the book of Ruth's reopening of Israel's history and national mythology functions in such a way as to redeem, as it were, the plight of the subaltern Moabite—a plight begun with the daughters of Lot in Genesis 19. A parallel is then drawn with the 1619 Project, the recent journalistic project which posits the entire historical sweep of African slavery in North America since 1619 as the defining arc of the United States' founding. As theoretical frames, (...) the essay draws on the work of literary critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (including her concept of “moral love”) and political philosopher Arash Abizadeh. In so doing, the essay illustrates how a “functionalist” approach to biblical ethics that balances the content of the biblical narrative with attention to how the text functions in its broader context can provide guidance for contemporary ethical application. (shrink)

Is there a relation between the increasing extension of markets and market norms to previously non-market goods, and the growth of environmental problems? This chapter explores two competing answers: market-endorsing positions that argue that a source of environmental problems lies in the absence of markets in environmental goods and that the extension of markets or market modes of valuation to environmental goods offers the most effective way of protecting them; market-skeptical positions that deny that the extension of markets will protect (...) environmental goods or more strongly that markets and increasing marketization are themselves a source of environmental problems. These positions offer distinct perspectives on market mimicking instruments in environmental policy making, such as cost-benefit analysis, and on the development of new markets, for example in emission rights and biodiversity offsets. The issues raised include questions about value commensurability, justice, epistemic limits to planning and markets, and environmental limits to growth. (shrink)

Research suggests that institutions affect the levels of corruption in a country. We take these arguments a step further and examine whether it is the presence of inclusive institutions and/or the credible and consistent implementation of institutions that matter, as regards corruption. We use a novel approach to theoretically conceptualise and empirically operationalise institutions along two analytically distinct dimensions: the nature of the institutions (the de jure dimension), and the extent to which they are credibly and consistently implemented over time (...) (the de facto dimension), using a panel dataset for 148 countries covering 2012 to 2018. We find that formal institutions are most effective in reducing corruption when the rules are credibly and consistently implemented. Furthermore, this effect appears to operate differently at different levels of national income. The nature of the formal institutions appears important across income levels, but particularly so at the upper middle income level, while the credible and consistent implementation of these institutions is primarily influential at upper middle income levels. We explain why this may be the case and elaborate on the policy implications. (shrink)

In this article, I argue, adverting to critical practices, that film adaptations are comparable with the comics that serve as their sources. The possibility of comparison presumes the existence of covering values according to which these comparisons are made. I raise four groupings of covering values for comics—narrative, pictorial, historical, and referential—and show how they apply to film adaptations as well, and argue that a fifth kind of value, fidelity, is relevant to comparisons of source comics to film adaptations. I (...) close with a discussion of different types of fidelity that might be brought to bear in evaluation. (shrink)

The Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011 and its corollaries, Occupy Sandy and Occupy Debt, have been largely understood as secular movements. In spite of this, religious actors not only participated, but in some cases played an integral role within the movement, lending material support, organizing expertise, and public statements of support. We rely on interviews with faith leaders in New York and Oakland, and engage in an analysis of print and online media to explore the role of religious actors (...) and groups in Occupy Wall Street. Religious participants were often long-time veterans of progressive political struggles and drew inspiration from their faith traditions. Nonetheless, religious commitments were secondary to political objectives shared by themselves and their secular counterparts. Religious leaders believed they offered symbolic authority to the movement and highlighted this in their engagement in the hope of giving it greater moral weight. Current discussions on postsecularism and public religions are considered. (shrink)

History-based trade books, such as biographies, narrative non-fiction, and expository texts, are essential secondary sources in social studies classrooms. Research, though, indicates a preponderance of misrepresentations in trade books’ depictions of historical eras and figures. We examined trade books’ historical representation of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, an iconic American president. The data sample featured biographies targeting various grade-ranges and published in different eras. Including books targeting early grade, middle grade, and high school students enabled comparisons of historical representation within and (...) between different grade-ranges. Incorporating texts published in different eras allowed for consideration of how Kennedy's historical representation changed over time. Mixed methods content analysis—reliant on both open and axial-coding—yielded important findings about how children's and young adult authors depicted Kennedy's family history, particularly during World War II, privileged social position, Catholicism, wife, health, tensions during his presidency, and his assassination and subsequent conspiracy theories. Trade books’ representations appeared to be shaped more by date-of-publication than intended age of the reader. Identified historical misrepresentations included presentism, omission, exceptionalism, and heroification. Significance for teachers and researchers is articulated and practical classroom suggestions are provided. (shrink)

The possibilities and importance of a spiritual dimension to education are subjects receiving increased consideration from educational practitioners, policymakers and philosophers. Spirituality, Philosophy and Education brings together contributions to the debate by a team of renowned philosophers of education. They bring to this subject a depth of scholarly and philosophical sophistication that was previously missing, and between them offer a wide-ranging exploration and analysis of what spiritual values have to offer contemporary education. The contributors address such subjects as what we (...) mean by 'spiritual values'; scholarship and spirituality; spirituality and virtue; spirituality, science and morality; the shaping of character; the value of spiritual learning; spiritual development and the curriculum and many others. All students of the philosophy of education and anyone interested in how spiritual values might play a part in informing education policy and practice will find this stimulating collection a rich source of ideas and a major addition to the thinking on the meaning, role and possibilities of spirituality in education. (shrink)

The earliest writer who deserves to be called a psychologist is Hobbes; and if we consider the time when he wrote, we cannot fail to be surprised at what I may term his prevision of the most important results which have now been established by science. He was the first clearly to sound the note which has ever since constituted the bass, or fundamental tone, of scientific thought. Let us listen to it through the clear instrumentality of his own language:-.

Abstractabstract:John B. Cobb, Jr., is one of the most influential Christian theologians of the past fifty years. Having written from an interdisciplinary lens, engaging economics, education, biology, and beyond, Cobb is not the typical theologian. One of Cobb's earliest concerns is the environmental crisis, having written the first single-author book on the subject in 1972. Cobb recognized early on that the environmental crisis was systemic, pervading modernity in both thought and culture, and sought to approach the problem as such. (...) This paper explores Cobb's religious and philosophical arguments regarding the environmental crisis. The first section identifies theological (anthropocentrism) and philosophical (substance-based thinking) assumptions that impede serious awareness of the environmental crisis. Here, Cobb's alternatives are presented in the quest for a more responsive worldview. Second, because environmental issues are pervasive in our modes of thinking, reconsidering education becomes a promising avenue in forming an ecological civilization. This section explores Cobb's detestation of the current education system in the West that idolizes isolated, fragmented disciplines. Instead, Cobb suggests the creation of a holistic, post-disciplinary approach. Finally, Cobb's legacy for the common good concludes this paper by supplying examples of his impact on the creation of an ecological civilization. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Gospel of Pain Were it not thus, 0 King of my salvation, Many would curse to thee and I for one, Fling thee thy bliss and snatch at thy damnation, Scorn and abhor the rising of the sun. Ring with the reckless shivering of laughter Wroth at the woe which thou hast seen so long, Question if any recompense hereafter Waits to atone the intolerable wrong. Is there not wrong too bitter for atoning? What are these desperate (...) and hideous years? Hast thou not heard thy whole creation groaning, Sighs of the bondsman, and a woman's tears? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

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Festchrift in honor of John Vattanky, Indian philosopher; Includes contributed articles on Hindu philosophy.

The development and deployment of medical devices, along with most areas of healthcare, has been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This has had variable ethical implications, two of which we will focus on here. First, medical device regulations have been rapidly amended to expedite approvals of devices ranging from face masks to ventilators. Although some regulators have issued cessation dates, there is inadequate discussion of triggers for exiting these crisis standards, and evidence that this may not be feasible. Given (...) the relatively low evidence standards currently required for regulatory approval of devices, this further indefinite reduction in standards raises serious ethical issues. Second, the pandemic has disrupted the usual operations of device representatives in hospitals, providing an opportunity to examine and refine this potentially ethically problematic practice. In this paper we explain and critically analyse the ethical implications of these two pandemic-related impacts on medical devices and propose suggestions for their management. These include an endpoint for pandemic-related adjustments to device regulation or a mechanism for continued refinement over time, together with a review of device research conducted under crisis conditions, support for the removal and replacement of emergency approved devices, and a review of device representative credentialling. (shrink)

This article considers the Undercover Surrealism exhibition curated at London’s Hayward Gallery and reflects on the practices of documentation, archiving and exhibition when the topic of the exhibition, as in this case, is a journal that in its most radical intention was set up to critique the practices of exhibition and documentation. The short and controversial life of Georges Bataille’s Documents unfolds as an often deliberately confusing juxtaposition of images and articles. The exhibition aims to represent both the sometimes incompatible (...) interests of the journal’s collaborators and the public dispute between Bataille and Breton over the aims of Surrealism. The article explores the intentions, risks, and possible effects of the exhibition in the context of Bataille’s own philosophy and his own peculiar part in the publication of Documents, which in its time was a contemporary review of diverse cultural phenomena interspersed with subversive dictionary entries. The article thus raises the question of what happens to the subversive intentions of a project like Documents in the scholarly historicist environment of public exhibition space. (shrink)

In this paper a number of oppositions which have haunted mathematics and philosophy are described and analyzed. These include the Continuous and the Discrete, the One and the Many, the Finite and the Infinite, the Whole and the Part, and the Constant and the Variable.