I love books for many things, but I despise them for introducing a physical limit to the free circulation of knowledge (compared to the Internet). At least, that's what I had always thought. continent. is an online journal aiming at, among other things, breaking with the established paradigms of how academic work has to be published in order to be respected among relevant peers. I'm the engineer behind the current version of continent. , making it work and keeping it running (...) since began in 2010. We provide an online platform for knowledge to circulate, beyond the limitations of institutional attachment or distribution of physical volumes. And regardless of not having a physical publication ourselves, and being a trans-national endeavour with core members spread across three continents, we had the honour to join the Publish Or Be Damned fair and conference of Northern European independent book publishers at Index Art Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. The place was bursting with exceptional volumes made by some of the most interesting publishers in the European north. The encounter changed the way I think about such books: these editions are designed, engineered and crafted to a level of sophistication that they begin to hold more than just their informational value printed. They convey and communicate a form of tactile knowledge and pleasure, and this completely changed my perspective on the matter. Because continent. had not materialised yet and only appeared in the form of social events (such as those in Basel, Boston, New York, or Zürich), we could not offer any such tactile pleasures to those visiting our booth. Given this, my solution was to turn continent. 's participation into a spectacle of simulation. With so many important figures of the independent publishing world present, we staged a series of imaginary book-launch moments for the camera. Presenting a first quasi-materialisation of continent. in the form of a book, or rather, the hypothetical extrapolation of our red square shape from our logo into a red 30x30 cm slate. Thanks to all those that participated. Your presences allowed continent. to visualise what it would be like if we had a book, and had been published within the honorable circle of these fine publishers. Soon the day will come where this will become reality. Thanks to all who joined the fun and didn't mind me showing these to the rest of the world. I'll publish them here, for them not to perish, even if I shall be damned. Ida Marie Hede Bertelsen ( Pork Salad Press ) Abdul Dube ( sideprojects ) René Sørensen ( sideprojects ) Anders ( OEI Editör ) Brett Bloom ( Half Letter Press ) Anni Puolakkaby ( OK Do ) Kit Hammonds, Kate Phillimore, Louise O'Hare ( Publish and Be Damned ) Ingvar Högni ( Útúrdúr ) Fredrik Ehlin, Andjeas Ejksson, Oscar Mangione ( Geist Magazine ) Klara Källström, Thobias Fäldt ( B-B-B Books ) Laura Hatfield ( Witnas editors ) Chris Johnsen ( WITNAS editors ) Matthew Rana ( Witnas editors ) Ola Ståhl & Carl Lindh ( In Edit Mode Press ) Staffan Lundgren ( Axl Books ) Tuuka Kaila ( NAPA Books ) Vebjørn Guttormsgaard Møllberg + Ingrid Forlang ( Kuk et Parfyme ) Diana Baldon, Joanna Nowotny and Egle Kulbokaite ( Index Foundation ). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Rethinking Cooperation with Evil: A Virtue-Based Approach by Ryan ConnorsGary AtkinsonCONNORS, Ryan. Rethinking Cooperation with Evil: A Virtue-Based Approach. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2023. xiii + 313 pp. Paper, $34.95The author adheres closely to the recommendation to tell his reader what he intends to do, tell him what he is doing while doing it, and having finished, tell him what he’s done, a recommendation (...) worth following for a work as tightly structured and complex as this one. It is clear, irenic, and shows extensive research: nearly 1,000 footnotes in its 275 pages of text offering many avenues for further exploration including numerous references to “alternative” accounts. It is far more than an analysis of cooperation, for it exposes the reader to a universe of concepts, many of which are seldom introduced in studies on the topic. It is also bracing, an elixir likely to incite (and likely intended to incite) the reader to a deeper commitment to careful moral thought and conscientious moral action. Few readers will close this book with a feeling of time unprofitably spent.The introduction makes clear the book’s two central claims: (i) that an adequate analysis of the topic of cooperation with evil has yet to be provided and (ii) that a virtue-based approach stemming from St. Thomas Aquinas contains the elements for its provision. In support of these claims the book is organized into five chapters, the first three foundational and the last two matters of application.Chapter 1, “The Teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas: Received and Jettisoned,” begins with a presentation of St. Thomas’s treatment of five topics—borrowing money from known usurers, scandal, restitution for [End Page 709] crimes committed by agents working together, exacting oaths from known perjurers, production of objects used for sinful purposes. This first section is followed by an examination of three theologians in the tradition of Thomistic analysis, Jean Capreolus (d. 1444), Giacomo de Vio Cajetan (d. 1534), and John of St. Thomas (d. 1644). Following this section is a third containing an account of the departure from the Thomistic mode of analysis represented by Thomas Sanchez (d. 1610) and St. Alphonsus Liguori (d. 1787). The first chapter provides a nice introduction and solid grounding for what is to come.Chapter 2, “A Broad Sampling of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Casuist Authors,” explores in its first section the manuals of nine figures: Aloysius Sabetti, Thomas Slater, Dominicus Prümmer, Benoit-Henri Merkelbach, Noldin-Schmitt, Jone-Adelman, McHugh-Callan, Henri Davis, and Bernhard Häring. The second and third sections highlight the lack of consensus among the authors and the consequent perplexity encountered by a conscientious moral agent regarding what counts as a “sufficient, proportionate, serious, or grave” reason for cooperation with evil. At several points throughout this book the author acknowledges the good sense of the casuists and the careful articulation of their judgments, but he finds their general approach to be wanting for several reasons, including their tendency to neglect consideration of the moral virtues and the nature of the act of cooperation itself.The extensive historical grounding provided by chapters 1 and 2 prepares the reader for chapter 3, “The Renewal of Theology: A Return to Virtue,” the focal chapter of the book. The first section concerns the thought of Servais Pinckaers, who “initiated a revival of St. Thomas’s moral theory that continues to the present day.” This is followed by a section treating of magisterial documents adopting St. Thomas’s and Pinckaers’s approach: Veritatis splendor, Evangelium vitae, Declaration on Euthanasia (1980), Vademecum for Confessors Concerning Some Aspects of Conjugal Life (1997), Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (2009). The third section considers the work of three twenty-first-century moralists who apply Thomistic methods to the topic of cooperation with evil: Steven Long, Archbishop Anthony Fisher, and Andrew McLean Cummings.Chapter 4, “A New Way Forward: the Virtuous Person Faces a Moral Dilemma,” is the first of two chapters showing St. Thomas’s approach at work. The author calls this approach both “object based” and “virtue based,” marking the two features receiving... (shrink)

How should the Bible be used in Christian ethics? Although this question has been addressed many times, little attention has gone to how the Bible actually has functioned in constructing theological ethics. In this book, Siker describes and analyzes the Bible's various uses in the theology and ethics of eight of the twentieth century's most important and influential Christian theologians: Reinhold Niebuhr, H. Richard Niebuhr, Bernhard Haring, Paul Ramsey, Stanley Hauerwas, Gustavo Gutierrez, James Cone, and Rosemary Radford Ruether. In (...) approaching each author, Siker organizes his study around five related questions. First, which biblical texts does each author in fact use, and, second, in what ways do they use these texts? How does each envision the authority of the Bible? What kind of hermeneutic does the author employ? Finally, what has each author's particular approach to the Bible yielded in terms of Christian Ethics, or, in other words, what are the practical results? Siker ends each chapter with a critical evaluation of the various problems and prospects for the author's use of Scripture, and concludes the study with a comparison and contrast of all the authors' respective appropriations of the Sermon on the Mount. (shrink)

Background Informed consent procedures for large population-based cohort studies should be comprehensive and easy-to-use. This is particularly challenging when participants from different socio-economic groups and multicultural ethnic backgrounds are involved. Recently, more and more studies have tried to use multimedia in informed consent procedures. We describe the development and testing of a digital informed consent app and elaborate on whether this may contribute to a comprehensive and practical procedure to obtain informed consent for public health research. Methods In a sample (...) of parents with young children, we used a mixed method approach to study the user experience of an informed consent app and evaluate whether it can be used to adequately inform people and register their consent. Through semi-structured interviews we investigated participants’ experiences with and opinions about the app, with a special focus on comprehensibility of the content and the usability of the app. Information retention questions were asked to evaluate to what extent participants could recall key aspects of the provided study information. Results The 30 participants in this study used the app between 4 and 15 min to give their consent. Overall, they found the app well-designed, informative and easy to use. To learn more about the study for which informed consent is asked, most of the participants chose to watch the animated film, which was generally found to convey information in a clear manner. The identification process was met with mixed reactions, with some feeling it as a secure way to give consent, while for others it contradicted their view of using data anonymously. Information retention questions showed that while all participants remembered various aspects of the study, fewer than half answered all four questions satisfactorily. Conclusion Our study shows that a well-designed informed consent app can be an effective tool to inform eligible participants and to record consents. Still, some issues remain, including trust barriers towards the identification procedure and lack of information retention in some participants. When implementing consent procedures that incorporate digital formats, it may be beneficial to also invest in a complementary face-to-face recruitment approach. (shrink)

We describe work in progress to conduct a systematic review of research on effects of arts-based programs for mental health in young people. We are at the stage of searching for relevant studies through major databases and screening extant systematic reviews for additional research which meet our inclusion criteria. At this stage, however, concerns have arisen regarding both the quality of existing primary studies and of recently published systematic reviews in this area of arts and health. As a case in (...) point, in this paper we focus on one research report on art therapy with adolescent girls and its inclusion in three systematic reviews. We demonstrate that the reviews fail to undertake a robust critique of the Bazargan and Pakdaman paper and that the paper and reviews are flawed. Drawing on recent criticisms of systematic reviewing, we consider the value of proceeding with our systematic review as initially planned. (shrink)

Psychobiological responses to music have been examined previously in various naturalistic settings in adults. Choir singing seems to be associated with positive psychobiological outcomes in adults. However, evidence on the effectiveness of singing in children and adolescents is sparse. The COVID-19 outbreak is significantly affecting society now and in the future, including how individuals engage with music. The COVID-19 pandemic is occurring at a time when virtual participation in musical experiences such as singing in a virtual choir has become more (...) prevalent. However, it remains unclear whether virtual singing leads to different responses in comparison with in-person singing. We evaluated the psychobiological effects of in-person choral singing in comparison with the effects of virtual choral singing in a naturalistic pilot within-subject study. A group of children and young adolescents from a school in Salzburg, Austria were recruited to take part in the study. Subjective measures were taken pre- and post-singing sessions once a week. Additionally, salivary biomarkers and quantity of social contacts were assessed pre- and post-singing sessions every second week. Psychological stability, self-esteem, emotional competences, and chronic stress levels were measured at the beginning of in-person singing as well as at the beginning and the end of the virtual singing. We observed a positive impact on mood after both in-person and virtual singing. Over time, in-person singing showed a pre-post decrease in salivary cortisol, while virtual singing showed a moderate increase. Moreover, a greater reduction in stress, positive change in calmness, and higher values of social contacts could be observed for the in-person setting compared to the virtual one. In addition, we observed positive changes in psychological stability, maladaptive emotional competences, chronic stress levels, hair cortisol, self-contingency and quality of life. Our preliminary findings suggest that group singing may provide benefits for children and adolescents. In-person singing in particular seems to have a stronger psychobiological effect. (shrink)

The anticipated social capabilities of robots may allow them to serve in authority roles as part of human-machine teams. To date, it is unclear if, and to what extent, human team members will comply with requests from their robotic teammates, and how such compliance compares to requests from human teammates. This research examined how the human-likeness and physical embodiment of a robot affect compliance to a robot's request to perseverate utilizing a novel task paradigm. Across a set of two studies, (...) participants performed a visual search task while receiving ambiguous performance feedback. Compliance was evaluated when the participant requested to stop the task and the coach urged the participant to keep practicing multiple times. In the first study, the coach was either physically co-located with the participant or located remotely via a live-video. Coach type varied in human-likeness and included either a real human, a Nao robot, or a modified Roomba robot. The second study expanded on the first by including a Baxter robot as a coach and replicated the findings in a different sample population with a strict chain of command culture. Results from both studies showed that participants comply with the requests of a robot for up to 11 min. Compliance is less than to a human and embodiment and human-likeness on had weak effects on compliance. (shrink)

Traditional approaches to human information processing tend to deal with perception and action planning in isolation, so that an adequate account of the perception-action interface is still missing. On the perceptual side, the dominant cognitive view largely underestimates, and thus fails to account for, the impact of action-related processes on both the processing of perceptual information and on perceptual learning. On the action side, most approaches conceive of action planning as a mere continuation of stimulus processing, thus failing to account (...) for the goal-directedness of even the simplest reaction in an experimental task. We propose a new framework for a more adequate theoretical treatment of perception and action planning, in which perceptual contents and action plans are coded in a common representational medium by feature codes with distal reference. Perceived events (perceptions) and to-be-produced events (actions) are equally represented by integrated, task-tuned networks of feature codes – cognitive structures we call event codes. We give an overview of evidence from a wide variety of empirical domains, such as spatial stimulus-response compatibility, sensorimotor synchronization, and ideomotor action, showing that our main assumptions are well supported by the data. Key Words: action planning; binding; common coding; event coding; feature integration; perception; perception-action interface. (shrink)

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1909 Edition.

An important question in epistemology is whether the KK principle is true, i.e., whether an agent who knows that p is also thereby in a position to know that she knows that p. We explain how a “transparency” account of self-knowledge, which maintains that we learn about our attitudes towards a proposition by reflecting not on ourselves but rather on that very proposition, supports an affirmative answer. In particular, we show that such an account allows us to reconcile a version (...) of the KK principle with an “externalist” or “reliabilist” conception of knowledge commonly thought to make that principle particularly problematic. (shrink)

In 2020, Amy-Jill Levine challenged the Society of Christian Ethics to take Christian privilege seriously. But Christian ethicists generally neglect Christian privilege as a distinct type. One site for Christian privilege is the ideal of authenticity, which grew from the idea that Christianity represents love, interiority, and spirituality (spirit), while Judaism represents legalism, exteriority, and materiality (letter). By prioritizing “spirit” over “letter,” an isolated ethic of authenticity can detach moral identity from history, race, community, land, and other seemingly extrinsic factors. (...) I draw on Willie James Jennings and Daniel Boyarin to illustrate authenticity’s exclusionary potential and Moses Mendelssohn to construct a more inclusive ideal. (shrink)

The debate over international trade has long pitted “free trade” advocates against those who argue that particular reasons support trade restraints. The newest argument is that open trade leads to a “race to the bottom” in the regulation of health, safety, welfare, and especially labor and environmental concerns, harming the nation’s citizens and undermining national sovereignty. One predicate for this argument – that trade increases competitive pressure on domestic industry – is accurate. That, in turn, will raise the cost of (...) some national policies that otherwise would win political approval. But the remainder of the race to the bottom argument rests on assumptions about regulation, the political process, and trade that do not stand up to examination. While responses to increased international competition will vary, the effects of such competition will generally be consistent with any meaningful notion of sovereignty and also will improve national welfare judged by common economic norms.Le débat sur le commerce international a longtemps opposé les défenseurs du libre échange à ceux qui soutiennent qu’il existe des raisons particulières en faveur de barrières à l’échange. L’argument le plus récent est que le libre échange conduit à une course au “nivellement par le bas” au niveau de la réglementation de la santé, de la sécurité, du bienêtre, et plus particulièrement dans les domaines du travail et de l’environnement. Selon ses tenants, elle aurait pour conséquence de léser les citoyens de la nation et d’affaiblir la souveraineté nationale.Un présupposé de cet argument – selon lequel le commerce accroît la pression concurrentielle subie par l’industrie nationale – est fondé. A son tour cela entraînera une augmentation du coût de certaines politiques nationales qui auraient par ailleurs obtenu un assentiment politique.Mais le reste de l’argumentation du nivellement par le bas repose sur des hypothèses à propos de la réglementation, du processus politique, et du commerce qui ne résistent pas à un examen critique.Bien que les réactions à une concurrence internationale accrue varient, les effets d’une telle concurrence seront généralement cohérents avec toute notion pertinente de souveraineté et amélioreront le bien-être national tel que jugé par les normes économiques standard. (shrink)

For Kant’s moral universalism, contingent religious law is legitimate only when it serves as a means of fulfilling the moral law. Though Kant uses traditional theological resources to account for the possibility of “statutory ecclesiastical law” in historical religions, he denies this possibility to Jewish law. Something like Kant’s logic appears in the work of some of his intellectual successors who continue to define Christianity in terms of its moral superiority to Judaism while attempting to excise remaining “Jewish” elements from (...) it. A more adequate account of the Hebrew Bible, Judaism, and the origins of Christianity exposes deficiencies in Kant’s universalizing logic which seems to deny any intrinsic value to historical religions. A possible alternative may lie in a modified account of the relationship between the moral law and religious law, perhaps nourished by Jewish thought, including the rabbinic tradition of the Noachide commandments. (shrink)

This paper seeks to introduce cultural techniques to an Anglophone readership. Specifically geared towards an Anglophone readership, the paper relates the re-emergence of cultural techniques to the changing intellectual constellation of postwar Germany. More specifically, it traces how the concept evolved from – and reacted against – so-called German media theory, a decidedly anti-hermeneutic and anti-humanist current of thought frequently associated with the work of Friedrich Kittler. Post-hermeneutic rather than anti-hermeneutic in its outlook, the reconceptualization of cultural techniques aims at (...) presenting them as chains of operations that link humans, things, media and even animals. To investigate cultural techniques is to shift the analytic gaze from ontological distinctions to the ontic operations that gave rise to the former in the first place. As Siegert points out, this shift recalls certain concurrent developments within the North American posthumanities; the paper therefore also includes a discussion of the similarities and differences between German and North American posthumanism. (shrink)

This chapter challenges the assumption of attention functioning as a means of preventing consciousness from getting overloaded, and also challenges the assumption of any relationships between management of scarce resources and the original biological function of attention. It emphasizes that attention is directly derived from mechanisms governing the control of basic movements. The author establishes the theoretical stage through discussions on the implications of the brain’s preference to stimulus events and action plans in a feature-based manner and processing information through (...) different mechanisms. The chapter also discusses many empirical findings supporting the conception of action planning and action control having the potential to determine perception and attention. (shrink)

Human cognition and action are intentional and goal-directed, and explaining how they are controlled is one of the most important tasks of the cognitive sciences. After half a century of benign neglect this task is enjoying increased attention. Unfortunately, however, current theorizing about control in general, and the role of consciousness for/in control in particular, suffers from major conceptual flaws that lead to confusion regarding the following distinctions: automatic and unintentional processes, exogenous control and disturbance of endogenous control, conscious control (...) and conscious access to control, and personal and systems levels of analysis and explanation. Only if these flaws are overcome will a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between consciousness and control emerge. (shrink)

ON ITS surface the Theaetetus ends inconclusively. It has even been said to end in failure. Yet this dialogue is exceptionally full of promise. The speakers are singularly well disposed. Two of them are gifted and resemble one another in looks and interests. Inquiry progresses splendidly through most of a long conversation. Although Theaetetus's first two definitions have to be given up, he is in the process led through a meticulous survey of cognition. These and other circumstances are too auspicious (...) for the termination of the dialogue to be taken at face value. The present essay is meant to disclose a partly hidden successful ending. The latter has to be discovered by readers. However the dialogue itself licenses and encourages active interpretation. The last ten pages of discourse contain so many specific clues that the text can be read as a single development ending in an affirmative conclusion. There is indeed a way to construe "true opinion with logos" so it applies to a cognition worthy of the name "epistémé.". (shrink)

First, we discuss issues raised with respect to the Theory of Event Coding (TEC)'s scope, that is, its limitations and possible extensions. Then, we address the issue of specificity, that is, the widespread concern that TEC is too unspecified and, therefore, too vague in a number of important respects. Finally, we elaborate on our views about TEC's relations to other important frameworks and approaches in the field like stages models, ecological approaches, and the two-visual-pathways model. Footnotes1 We acknowledge the precedence (...) of both Freud¹s Instincts and Their Vicissitudes (1915) and Neisser¹s Stimulus Information and Its Vicissitudes (a term Neisser borrowed from Freud for his monograph “Cognitive psychology,” 1967). (shrink)

We generalize Moss and Parikh's logic of knowledge, effort, and topological reasoning, in two ways. We develop both a multi-agent and a multi-method setting for it. In each of these cases, we prove a corresponding soundness and completeness theorem, and we show that the new logics are decidable. Our methods of proof rely on those for the original system. This might have been expected, since that system is conservatively extended for the given situation. Several technical details are different nevertheless here.

We compare Karl Popper’s ideas concerning the falsifiability of a theory with similar notions from the part of statistical learning theory known as VC-theory . Popper’s notion of the dimension of a theory is contrasted with the apparently very similar VC-dimension. Having located some divergences, we discuss how best to view Popper’s work from the perspective of statistical learning theory, either as a precursor or as aiming to capture a different learning activity.

In this article, I apply a structural-phenomenological conception of experience and self to the anthropological theorizing of spirit possession. In particular, I argue that a phenomenology of the alien, as elaborated by the philosopher Bernhard Waldenfels, allows for a more differentiated understanding of possession phenomena. Following a characterization of alienness—in conceptual distinction from the more common term “otherness”—as a dimension that necessarily eludes experience, I describe spirit possession as a cultural technology to appropriate the experiential alien by transforming it (...) into the symbolic other. I discuss this relation to the alien in thematic areas central to the anthropology of possession: illness and therapy, symbolism and naming, embodiment and self. (shrink)

Of course private-public terminology has a certain first-hand obviousness for us. No one does my experiencing for me; there are features of myself evident to me simply by virtue of the fact that I live through them. These features are not available in quite the same way to others. And your situation is the same. Meanwhile we all have the same sort of access to what we can see and touch and explore scientifically, i.e., the public common world. These remarks (...) must not be taken to imply that a human's privacy is identical with awareness or with immediate feelings; privacy is not exhausted in consciousness. Nevertheless the importance of the private-public distinction à propos actualities is its promise for clearing up or at least clarifying many puzzles involving consciousness: problems about perception, mind-brain connections, and even perhaps immortality. At least the distinction is promising if you begin by taking us to be indeed individual centers of an awareness which discloses some private content but also discloses real other bodily beings. That is, something like Weiss's conception of private and public or inside and outside seems to be essential if one holds that mentality has a firm non-dubious place in the natural world. (shrink)