Mental time travel is the ability to mentally project oneself backward in time to relive past experiences and forward in time to pre-live possible future experiences. Previous work has focused on MTT in its voluntary form. Here, we introduce the notion of involuntary MTT. We examined involuntary versus voluntary and past versus future MTT in a diary study. We found that involuntary future event representations—defined as representations of possible personal future events that come to mind with no preceding search attempts—were (...) as common as involuntary autobiographical memories and similar to them regarding cuing and subjective qualities. Future MTT involved more positive and idyllic representations than past MTT. MTT into the distant future/past involved more representations of cultural life script events than MTT into the immediate past/future. The findings are discussed in relation to cultural learning and MTT considered as a higher mental process. (shrink)

Law-enforcement agencies are increasingly able to leverage crime statistics to make risk predictions for particular individuals, employing a form of inference that some condemn as violating the right to be “treated as an individual.” I suggest that the right encodes agents’ entitlement to a fair distribution of the burdens and benefits of the rule of law. Rather than precluding statistical prediction, it requires that citizens be able to anticipate which variables will be used as predictors and act intentionally to avoid (...) them. Furthermore, it condemns reliance on various indexes of distributive injustice, or unchosen properties, as evidence of law-breaking. (shrink)

Several authors have recently suggested that moral factors and norms `encroach' on the epistemic, and because of salient parallels to pragmatic encroachment views in epistemology, these suggestions have been dubbed `moral encroachment views'. This paper distinguishes between variants of the moral encroachment thesis, pointing out how they address different problems, are motivated by different considerations, and are not all subject to the same objections. It also explores how the family of moral encroachment views compare to classical pragmatic encroachment accounts.

Some, but not all, of the mistakes a person makes when acting in apparently necessary self-defense are reasonable: we take them not to violate the rights of the apparent aggressor. I argue that this is explained by duties grounded in agents' entitlements to a fair distribution of the risk of suffering unjust harm. I suggest that the content of these duties is filled in by a social signaling norm, and offer some moral constraints on the form such a norm can (...) take. (shrink)

A ‘vestigial social practice' is a norm, convention, or social behavior that persists even when few endorse it or its original justifying rationale. Begby (2021) explores social explanations for the persistence of prejudice, arguing that even if we all privately disavow a stereotype, we might nevertheless continue acting as if it is true because we believe that others expect us to. Meanwhile the persistence of the practice provides something like implicit testimonial evidence for the prejudice that would justify it, making (...) it rational for members of the next generation to acquire the corresponding prejudiced beliefs. This paper distinguishes between three different types of vestigial social practice in terms of the underlying explanatory mechanisms, and argues that the persistence of prejudicial social stereotypes is most tightly linked not to others’ beliefs or expectations, but to the ways that material infrastructure constrains options shapes social outcomes. Given that, the persistence of a practice only provides grounds to infer that most people endorse the corresponding prejudiced belief only if we are in a position to dismiss relevant alternative explanations. (shrink)

Leibniz viewed the principle of continuity, the principle that all natural changes are produced by degrees, as a useful heuristic for evaluating the truth of a theory. Since the Cartesian laws of motion entailed discontinuities in the natural order, Leibniz could safely reject it as a false theory. The principle of continuity has similar implications for analyses of Leibniz's theory of consciousness. I briefly survey the three main interpretations of Leibniz's theory of consciousness and argue that the standard account entails (...) a discontinuity that Leibniz could not allow. I argue that the principle of continuity and the textual data favor an interpretation according to which a conscious mental state just is a perception that is distinct to a sufficient degree. (shrink)

We investigated whether memories are selected for the life story based on event characteristics. Sixty-one students completed weekly diaries over their first term at university. They described, dated and rated two events each week. Three months after the end of the term they completed an unexpected memory test. They recalled three memories from the diary period that were important to their life story. Three randomly selected events scoring low on importance to the life story functioned as control memories. Life story (...) memories were rated higher on goal relevance, emotional intensity, importance and rehearsal in the diary and maintained their higher ratings at the test session, while ratings for control memories dropped off. Life story memories’ content was less consistent over time but they were more accurately dated than control memories. The results suggest that event characteristics play an important role for the selection of life story memories. (shrink)

Involuntary autobiographical memories are spontaneously arising memories of personal events, whereas voluntary memories are retrieved strategically. Voluntary remembering has been studied in numerous experiments while involuntary remembering has been largely ignored. It is generally assumed that voluntary recall is the standard way of remembering, whereas involuntary recall is the exception. However, little is known about the actual frequency of these two types of remembering in daily life. Here, 48 Danish undergraduates recorded their involuntary versus voluntary autobiographical memories during a day (...) using a mechanical counter. Involuntary memories were reported three times as frequently as voluntary memories. Compared to voluntary memories, they were associated less with problem solving and social sharing and more with day dreaming, periods of boredom, no reasons for remembering and predominantly came to mind during unfocused attention. The findings suggest that involuntary recall is a typical way of accessing the personal past. (shrink)

In this article, I develop a higher-order interpretation of Leibniz's theory of consciousness according to which memory is constitutive of consciousness. I offer an account of Leibniz's theory of memory on which his theory of consciousness may be based, and I then show that Leibniz could have developed a coherent higher-order account. However, it is not clear whether Leibniz held (or should have held) such an account of consciousness; I sketch an alternative that has at least as many advantages as (...) the higher-order theory. This analysis provides an important antecedent to the contemporary discussions of higher-order theories of consciousness. (shrink)

This book provides a succinct, student-friendly outline of the principles, approaches, and issues in participant observation. An examination of these basic tenets is important for clarifying the philosophical rationale for conducting participant observation, making important research decisions, and appreciating the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches within the method. Participant observation as a formal means of inquiry is developed in close relation with the competing approaches of reality (ontology), truthfully apprehending reality (epistemology), and formal research (methodology). In this volume Jorgensen (...) discusses the resulting methodologies of positivism, humanism, and most recently postmodernism in relation to principles, approaches, and issues in participant observation. Specific features of participant observation, as exemplified in a wide range of classic and contemporary studies, are examined by way of these methodological approaches along with the troublesome complexities of values, politics, ethics, and contemporary debates over appropriate representations of the resulting findings about human life. This concise primer is suitable for undergraduate and graduate students in a wide range of disciplines such as anthropology, religious studies, sociology and nursing. (shrink)

Mental time travel is the ability to mentally project oneself into one’s personal past or future, in terms of memories of past events or projections of possible future events. We investigated the frequency and valence of involuntary MTT in the context of high trait worry. High and low worriers recorded the frequency and valence of involuntary memories and future projections using a structured notebook and completed measures probing individual differences related to negative affectivity. Involuntary future projections were as frequent as (...) involuntary memories. We found a positivity bias for both past and future MTT, in that fewer negative events were reported than positive or neutral ones. This positivity bias was greater for future than for past events. Individual differences related to negative affectivity were positively associated with the proportion of negative events, indicating a reduced positivity bias in individuals with a general tendency to experience negative affect. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Editorial Reflections on Philosophizing in Music EducationEstelle R. Jorgensen and Iris M. YobIn this article, we reflect on issues that go to the heart of teaching and scholarship in the philosophy of music education. After thirty years of editing Philosophy of Music Education Review, it is a good time to take stock of the philosophical work that has been and is being published and of challenges that remain.Over the (...) years, there has been a growing quality of philosophical articles published in the journal, due in significant part to the efforts of reviewers and the willingness of writers to work with their suggestions. Authors regularly express appreciation for the informed, critical, and constructive reviews their work receives. An exemplary body of philosophical scholarship in music education has been published over this time and PMER is regarded as a premier journal internationally devoted exclusively to the philosophy of music education. In thirty volumes of uninterrupted publication, we have sought to be responsive to important issues in music education. Our writers have engaged relevant subjects of interest to our readers, citations of articles remain strong, and articles are included in [End Page 109] university and college course reading lists. PMER is available in print and online via subscription; it has a wide digital exposure in search engines and leading indexes, and our readership continues to grow.Despite this progress, although the number of submissions has increased, their quality has sometimes been uneven. Our pedagogical commitment to foster philosophical writing and the philosophical inexperience of some writers has significantly impacted the work required to bring submissions to publication standard. Submissions sometimes evidence a lack of attention to formulating a tight argument, citing relevant sources, and polishing and editing the manuscript. The published style guidelines are too often ignored, creating a poor first impression with reviewers and editors. Writers are occasionally in a hurry to publish and less willing to entertain multiple revisions of their articles required to produce work of lasting value. The growing number of music education journals that publish philosophical work, while opening more fora, in some cases perversely result in ideologically driven, polemical, and philosophically uninformed articles in the name of philosophy. This is a good moment to reconsider the importance of philosophical fundamentals that should undergird our philosophizing in music education and what these mean for our academic responsibilities. To this end, we suggest several principles that need to be central to our philosophizing in music education. These principles also have broader implications for the expectations of scholarship in music education generally.WRITING PHILOSOPHYLike other subject areas in the academy, philosophy has its own intellectual structure, a canon of significant writings, its own interpretative methods, and its distinctive role and purpose. A philosophical paper in music education reads differently from papers in the history of music education, methods of teaching music, sociology of music education, empirical research in music education, multi-cultural, gender, and ethnic studies, music education curriculum building and policy making, and so on. And yet, the boundaries between these disciplines, which are artificial constructions when human knowledge is considered wholistically anyway, are somewhat porous with concepts and ideas and claims seeming to move easily from one discipline to another.To help distinguish between philosophy and other areas of study and research, it may be helpful to consider philosophy as a second-order activity. That is, first-order activity examines the raw data of research and experience and attempts to make sense of them. Using inference, pattern-seeking, deduction, hypotheses, statistical analysis, and so on, these activities result in claims, interpretations, and theories that give meaning to what we see, hear, and feel. [End Page 110]The second-order activity takes a step away from these first-order activities. It does not concern itself so much with raw data or with creating theories about them, but critically analyzes the claims and inferences that are made in regard to them. Where first-order disciplines analyze inputs from observation and experimentation, second-order disciplines analyze these analyses—that is, they function as meta-analyses. Philosophers do not need laboratories or fieldwork (which makes applications for grants to support philosophical research difficult to secure!). They need libraries... (shrink)

The problem of moral disagreement has been presented as an objection to contextualist semantics for ‘ought’, since it is not clear that contextualism can accommodate or give a convincing gloss of such disagreement. I argue that independently of our semantics, disagreements over ‘ought’ in non-cooperative contexts are best understood as indirect metalinguistic disputes, which is easily accommodated by contextualism. If this is correct, then rather than posing a problem for contextualism, the data from moral disagreements provides some reason to adopt (...) a semantics that allows contextual variance in the meanings of ‘ought’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 15.2 (2007) 150-160MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Songs to Teach a NationEstelle R. Jorgensen Indiana University, BloomingtonIn this symposium, I first briefly respond to Randall Allsup's piece, "Extraordinary Rendition: On Politics, Music, and Circular Meanings" with some general remarks on the distinctions between fundamentalism and liberalism, and internationalism, nationalism, and localism, and the importance of exercising judgment in order to find a middle ground between (...) extreme positions. Against this backdrop, I reflect on the songs we need to teach the nation to sing and, as a case in point, consider the National Anthem Project launched by the MENC—The National Association for Music Education. I suggest that at the very least the "Star-Spangled Banner" ought not be the only song to teach the nation at this time and it is important to carefully consider which songs we ought to teach the nation. And I propose that music teachers need to take a measured approach that eschews fundamentalism, rampant militarism, and excessive patriotism, embraces musically the tensions between internationalism, nationalism, and localism, and expresses a sensitive world-view through the choice of songs that cultivate and express liberal and democratic ideals and foster peace internationally.1Allsup's attention to the political character of research reminds us of the important consequences of any activity in the public and private spheres. Our endeavors as researchers are inherently ethical and have political consequences because as music teachers, we act on behalf of what John Dewey terms "the public."2 Dewey's "public" arises out of the need for social activities to be collectively organized, especially given the presence of the young, the poor, the ill, the elderly, the needy, and those who are otherwise dependent on others. Politics concerns the organization and governance of the public, that is the collective activities on behalf of society. For Dewey, educational activity cannot escape being ethical and political (construed positively) by the very fact of its undertaking on behalf of a public in the phenomenal world.3My understanding of fundamentalism is that it is, by definition, antithetical to liberalism. Whereas liberalism embraces surprise, entertains the possibility of doubt, and includes the "responsibility to choose,"4 fundamentalism is closed-minded and refuses to be surprised or to doubt the certainty of beliefs that have been accepted. Israel Scheffler notes that there is a safety in dogmatism in which one does not need to face the unsettlement of surprise that one might be wrong and one's beliefs mistaken.5 This quality of fallibility and openness to the possibility of surprise renders a liberal democracy fragile. Without cultivating [End Page 150] capacities and dispositions to open-mindedness and critical thought and action on the part of all the citizens of the democracy, it is open to being high-jacked by closed-mindedness and fundamentalism and thereby subject to dictatorial action on the part of those who seize political power.6 In difficult times, certainty may seem to be safer than open-mindedness that weighs possibilities and thinks through the complexities with which the public must deal. As Paul Woodford argues, if music education is to serve the interests of liberalism, it must likewise cultivate critical thinking and I add the caveat, as a means of defeating fundamentalism and literalism that would destroy liberal democracy.7Liberalism depends on the assertion of certain universal principles of ethical conduct. Seyla Benhabib's reconstruction of universals in what she terms her "post-Enlightenment project of interactive universalism" takes account of important postmodern, feminist, and communitarian insights and understands universals as "interactive not legislative, cognizant of gender difference not gender blind, contextually sensitive and not situation indifferent."8 In this frame, it is only possible to sustain liberalism on the assumption of action that takes for granted that others ought to agree with one and act in such-and-such ways. Whether these principles are referred to as "commonalities" or "universals" in the Benhabibian sense, one appeals to certain propositions on which ethical and political action should be predicated... (shrink)

A study found that women participating in mammography screening were content with the programme and the paternalistic invitations that directly encourage participation and include a pre-specified time of appointment. We argue that this merely reflects that the information presented to the invited women is seriously biased in favour of participation. Women are not informed about the major harms of screening, and the decision to attend has already been made for them by a public authority. This short-circuits informed decision-making and the (...) legislation on informed consent, and violates the autonomy of the women. Screening invitations must present both benefits and harms in a balanced fashion, and should offer, not encourage, participation. It should be stated clearly that the choice not to participate is as sensible as the choice to do so. To allow this to happen, the responsibility for the screening programmes must be separated from the responsibility for the information material. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 11.2 (2003) 130-140 [Access article in PDF] Western Classical Music and General Education Estelle R. Jorgensen Indiana University Thinking about transforming music, I address issues relating to the role of musicians in higher education and Western classical music in general education. I am concerned about this music because it is marginalized in general education and the civic spaces of public life. Where once it (...) held a privileged place, it seems now to have acquired (in some quarters at least) a negative connotation as a bastion of elitism and privilege. Instead, popular musics (with a nod to musics of other cultures) have pride of place in much elementary and secondary music education and in many university and college offerings designed for students whose principal fields of study lie outside music. An all-too-common musical illiteracy or, at best, elementary level of musical literacy and aurality renders Western classical music inaccessible to the general public just as the pervasiveness of popular music renders it inaudible and invisible. Bridges to past, less accessible, and esoteric traditions are also too few or in disrepair. Julian Johnson laments the diminished stature of Western classical music and argues for its values in today's world. 1Music teachers of all stripes urgently need to address this marginalization of Western classical music as a matter of public policy. If caring for and fostering [End Page 130] diversity in the natural world is a good, then it is reasonable to expect that fostering diversity in the cultural world is likewise a good. If preventing the extinction of natural species is a matter of public policy, then surely preventing the extinction of musics among other cultural traditions is at least as important. Social transformation has within it the seeds of conservation, or the preserving of past traditions, just as it also suggests profound and ongoing planned and unintended change. When any music such as Western classical music is sidelined, music education policy makers need to ask, Is this multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-faceted music important to keep, foster, and change? What does it have to contribute in the present world? Is it being cared for sufficiently? If it needs to change, how ought it be changed? What principles can be helpful to music teachers in caring for, fostering, and changing it? These are compelling public policy questions for our time. A Quarrel and Its Aftermath In 1963, participants in the Yale Seminar asked some of these very difficult questions of music education policy makers. MENC leaders took exception to the seminar and its conclusions; although some outstanding music teachers were participants, the organization had not been invited and the seminar was not its idea. 2 Instead of addressing directly some of the important criticisms of school music education and music teacher education raised in the seminar, the MENC mounted its own rival Tanglewood Symposium in 1967. Participants in this symposium faulted music in higher education for its failure to admit "talented and capable high school music students [to] the privilege of advanced study," the "[c]ompartmentalization and lack of communication between various segments of the music field," its lack of relation to "the musical heritage of American culture," and its failure to ensure arts courses in general education. 3 The symposium contributed to a populist stance focused on the myriad vernacular traditions of the world, thereby diminishing the role and presence of Western classical music and highlighting popular and vernacular musics at MENC conferences and in the elementary and secondary schools in the United States. Subsequent attempts to renew the Western classical tradition and raise the musical expectations of teachers and their students in the nation's schools exemplified in the Juilliard Repertory, Manhattanville Music Curriculum Project, and Comprehensive Musicianship Program seem not to have made a lasting impact. And the differing criticisms and visions of the Yale Seminar and Tanglewood Symposium have yet to be critically engaged.Summarizing criticisms made of school music repertoire in the report of the Yale Seminar to the Office of Education, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and... (shrink)

I argue that inferences from highly probabilifying racial generalizations are not solely objectionable because acting on such inferences would be problematic, or they violate a moral norm, but because they violate a distinctively epistemic norm. They involve accepting a proposition when, given the costs of a mistake, one is not adequately justified in doing so. First I sketch an account of the nature of adequate justification—practical adequacy with respect to eliminating the ~p possibilities from one’s epistemic statespace. Second, I argue (...) that inferences based on demographic generalizations tend to disproportionately expose group members to the risks associated with mistakenly assuming stereotypical propositions, and so magnify the wrong involved in relying on such inferences without adequate justification. (shrink)

There is no doubt that episodic memory serves communicative functions, but Mahr & Csibra overlook that this is not the only function served by memories of past events. Autobiographical memory research has identified several other functions, including purely directive functions. The functionality of episodic memory is not stable across situations; it varies dynamically with the demands of the retrieval context.

This book features a unique collection of dialogues with fourteen notable scholars on their opinions and observations about John Dewey, a renowned educational philosopher of the twentieth century. The book explores varying views about John Dewey, his philosophy, and his educational theory. In revealing positive, sometimes negative, occasionally surprising, and consistently insightful viewpoints, the author seeks to enable the reader to reflect on the primary question: does John Dewey’s consequential educational philosophy have an important role in twenty-first century education and (...) in nurturing and sustaining democratic ideals? (shrink)

Transgression in Games and Play is a collection of original research that explores what transgression means in the context of videogames and play, how boundaries are being crossed by game content as well as by player actions, and how players respond to different kinds of infringements. It explores questions such as: How are controversial game content experienced during the course of gameplay? Why would players intentionally put themselves or others under distress when playing games, and how does such content affect (...) the playful attitude? Are there any ethical or aesthetical limits for what type of contents that can be presented in games? If so, are these limits different from other media? What are the means and motivation for designers to create transgressive game content. (shrink)

Holistic accounts of meaning normally incorporate a subjective dimension that invites the criticism that they make communication impossible, for speakers are bound to differ in ways the accounts take to be relevant to meaning, and holism generalises any difference over some words to a difference about all, and this seems incompatible with the idea that successful communication requires mutual understanding. I defend holism about meaning from this criticism. I argue that the same combination of properties (subjective origins of value, holism (...) among values, and ultimate publicity of value) is exhibited by monetary value and take the emergence of equilibrium prices as a model for the emergence of public meanings. (shrink)

I argue that the offense generation pattern of slurring terms parallels that of impoliteness behaviors, and is best explained by appeal to similar purely pragmatic mechanisms. In choosing to use a slurring term rather than its neutral counterpart, the speaker signals that she endorses the term. Such an endorsement warrants offense, and consequently slurs generate offense whenever a speaker's use demonstrates a contrastive preference for the slurring term. Since this explanation comes at low theoretical cost and imposes few constraints on (...) an account of the semantics of slurs, this suggests that we should not require semantic accounts to provide an independent explanation of the offense profile. (shrink)

This study compares involuntary and voluntary autobiographical memories in depressed and never depressed individuals. Twenty depressed and twenty never depressed individuals completed a memory diary; recording their reactions to 10 involuntary and 10 voluntary memories over 14–30 days. Psychiatric status , psychopathology, rumination and avoidance were assessed. For both groups, involuntary memories more frequently lead to strong reactions than voluntarily memories. For both modes of retrieval, depressed individuals reported more frequent negative reactions than never depressed individuals and rated memories as (...) more central to identity with higher levels of rumination and avoidance. Depressed individuals retrieved both positive and negative memories during involuntary retrieval. These findings support the view that involuntary memory retrieval represents a basic mode of retrieval during healthy and disordered cognition, and that during depression, both involuntary and voluntary memories are central to identity and associated with rumination and avoidance. (shrink)

The Treatise on Giving Rise to Faith in the Great Vehicle is one of the most important foundational texts of East Asian Buddhism. This new annotated translation of the Treatise draws on the historical and intellectual contexts of the work's composition and pays close attention to its interpretation in early commentaries.