Scientists often adjust their significance threshold during null hypothesis significance testing in order to take into account multiple testing and multiple comparisons. This alpha adjustment has become particularly relevant in the context of the replication crisis in science. The present article considers the conditions in which this alpha adjustment is appropriate and the conditions in which it is inappropriate. A distinction is drawn between three types of multiple testing: disjunction testing, conjunction testing, and individual testing. It is argued that alpha (...) adjustment is only appropriate in the case of disjunction testing, in which at least one test result must be significant in order to reject the associated joint null hypothesis. Alpha adjustment is inappropriate in the case of conjunction testing, in which all relevant results must be significant in order to reject the joint null hypothesis. Alpha adjustment is also inappropriate in the case of individual testing, in which each individual result must be significant in order to reject each associated individual null hypothesis. The conditions under which each of these three types of multiple testing is warranted are examined. It is concluded that researchers should not automatically assume that alpha adjustment is necessary during multiple testing. Illustrations are provided in relation to joint studywise hypotheses and joint multiway ANOVAwise hypotheses. (shrink)

The replication crisis has caused researchers to distinguish between exact replications, which duplicate all aspects of a study that could potentially affect the results, and direct replications, which duplicate only those aspects of the study that are thought to be theoretically essential to reproduce the original effect. The replication crisis has also prompted researchers to think more carefully about the possibility of making Type I errors when rejecting null hypotheses. In this context, the present article considers the utility of two (...) types of Type I error probability: the Neyman–Pearson long run Type I error rate and the Fisherian sample-specific Type I error probability. It is argued that the Neyman–Pearson Type I error rate is inapplicable in social science because it refers to a long run of exact replications, and social science deals with irreversible units that make exact replications impossible. Instead, the Fisherian sample-specific Type I error probability is recommended as a more meaningful way to conceptualize false positive results in social science because it can be applied to each sample-specific decision about rejecting the same substantive null hypothesis in a series of direct replications. It is concluded that the replication crisis may be partly due to researchers’ unrealistic expectations about replicability based on their consideration of the Neyman–Pearson Type I error rate across a long run of exact replications. (shrink)

Kerr coined the term ‘HARKing’ to refer to the practice of ‘hypothesizing after the results are known’. This questionable research practice has received increased attention in recent years because it is thought to have contributed to low replication rates in science. The present article discusses the concept of HARKing from a philosophical standpoint and then undertakes a critical review of Kerr’s twelve potential costs of HARKing. It is argued that these potential costs are either misconceived, misattributed to HARKing, lacking evidence, (...) or that they do not take into account pre- and post-publication peer review and public availability to research materials and data. It is concluded that it is premature to conclude that HARKing has led to low replication rates. (shrink)

Fisher criticised the Neyman-Pearson approach to hypothesis testing by arguing that it relies on the assumption of “repeated sampling from the same population.” The present article considers the responses to this criticism provided by Pearson and Neyman. Pearson interpreted alpha levels in relation to imaginary replications of the original test. This interpretation is appropriate when test users are sure that their replications will be equivalent to one another. However, by definition, scientific researchers do not possess sufficient knowledge about the relevant (...) and irrelevant aspects of their tests and populations to be sure that their replications will be equivalent to one another. Pearson also interpreted the alpha level as a personal rule that guides researchers’ behavior during hypothesis testing. However, this interpretation fails to acknowledge that the same researcher may use different alpha levels in different testing situations. Addressing this problem, Neyman proposed that the average alpha level adopted by a particular researcher can be viewed as an indicator of that researcher’s typical Type I error rate. Researchers’ average alpha levels may be informative from a metascientific perspective. However, they are not useful from a scientific perspective. Scientists are more concerned with the error rates of specific tests of specific hypotheses, rather than the error rates of their colleagues. It is concluded that neither Neyman nor Pearson adequately rebutted Fisher’s “repeated sampling” criticism. Fisher’s significance testing approach is briefly considered as an alternative to the Neyman-Pearson approach. (shrink)

Several researchers have recently argued that p values lose their meaning in exploratory analyses due to an unknown inflation of the alpha level (e.g., Nosek & Lakens, 2014; Wagenmakers, 2016). For this argument to be tenable, the familywise error rate must be defined in relation to the number of hypotheses that are tested in the same study or article. Under this conceptualization, the familywise error rate is usually unknowable in exploratory analyses because it is usually unclear how many hypotheses have (...) been tested on a spontaneous basis and then omitted from the final research report. In the present article, I argue that it is inappropriate to conceptualize the familywise error rate in relation to the number of hypotheses that are tested. Instead, it is more appropriate to conceptualize familywise error in relation to the number of different tests that are conducted on the same null hypothesis in the same study. Under this conceptualization, alpha level adjustments in exploratory analyses are (a) less necessary and (b) objectively verifiable. As a result, p values do not lose their meaning in exploratory analyses. (shrink)

Hypothesizing after the results are known, or HARKing, occurs when researchers check their research results and then add or remove hypotheses on the basis of those results without acknowledging this process in their research report (Kerr, 1998). In the present article, I discuss three forms of HARKing: (1) using current results to construct post hoc hypotheses that are then reported as if they were a priori hypotheses; (2) retrieving hypotheses from a post hoc literature search and reporting them as a (...) priori hypotheses; and (3) failing to report a priori hypotheses that are unsupported by the current results. These three types of HARKing are often characterized as being bad for science and a potential cause of the current replication crisis. In the present article, I use insights from the philosophy of science to present a more nuanced view. Specifically, I identify the conditions under which each of these three types of HARKing is most and least likely to be bad for science. I conclude with a brief discussion about the ethics of each type of HARKing. (shrink)

Popper’s (1983, 2002) philosophy of science has enjoyed something of a renaissance in the wake of the replication crisis, offering a philosophical basis for the ensuing science reform movement. However, adherence to Popper’s approach may also be at least partly responsible for the sense of “crisis” that has developed following multiple unexpected replication failures. In this article, I contrast Popper’s approach with Lakatos’ (1978) approach and a related approach called naïve methodological falsificationism (NMF; Lakatos, 1978). The Popperian approach is powerful (...) because it is based on logical refutation, but its theories are noncausal and, therefore, lacking in scientific value. In contrast, the Lakatosian approach considers causal theories, but it concedes that these theories are not logically refutable. Finally, the NMF approach subjects Lakatosian causal theories to Popperian logical refutations. However, its approach of temporarily accepting a ceteris paribus clause during theory testing may be viewed as scientifically inappropriate, epistemically inconsistent, and “completely redundant” (Lakatos, 1978, p. 40). I conclude that the replication “crisis” makes the most sense in the context of the Popperian and NMF approaches because it is only in these two approaches that replication failures represent logical refutations of theories. In contrast, replication failures are less problematic in the Lakatosian approach because they do not logically refute theories. Indeed, in the Lakatosian approach, replication failures can be legitimately ignored or used to motivate theory development. (shrink)

Gelman and Loken (2013, 2014) proposed that when researchers base their statistical analyses on the idiosyncratic characteristics of a specific sample (e.g., a nonlinear transformation of a variable because it is skewed), they open up alternative analysis paths in potential replications of their study that are based on different samples (i.e., no transformation of the variable because it is not skewed). These alternative analysis paths count as additional (multiple) tests and, consequently, they increase the probability of making a Type I (...) error during hypothesis testing. The present article considers this forking paths problem and evaluates four potential solutions that might be used in psychology and other fields: (a) adjusting the prespecified alpha level, (b) preregistration, (c) sensitivity analyses, and (d) abandoning the Neyman-Pearson approach. It is concluded that although preregistration and sensitivity analyses are effective solutions to p-hacking, they are ineffective against result-neutral forking paths, such as those caused by transforming data. Conversely, although adjusting the alpha level cannot address p-hacking, it can be effective for result-neutral forking paths. Finally, abandoning the Neyman-Pearson approach represents a further solution to the forking paths problem. (shrink)

Preregistration has been proposed as a useful method for making a publicly verifiable distinction between confirmatory hypothesis tests, which involve planned tests of ante hoc hypotheses, and exploratory hypothesis tests, which involve unplanned tests of post hoc hypotheses. This distinction is thought to be important because it has been proposed that confirmatory hypothesis tests provide more compelling results (less uncertain, less tentative, less open to bias) than exploratory hypothesis tests. In this article, we challenge this proposition and argue that there (...) are several advantages of exploratory hypothesis tests that can make their results more compelling than those of confirmatory hypothesis tests. We also consider some potential disadvantages of exploratory hypothesis tests and conclude that their advantages can outweigh the disadvantages. We conclude that exploratory hypothesis tests avoid researcher commitment and researcher prophecy biases, reduce the probability of data fraud, are more appropriate in the context of unplanned deviations, facilitate inference to the best explanation, and allow peer reviewers to make additional contributions at the data analysis stage. In contrast, confirmatory hypothesis tests may lead to an inappropriate level of confidence in research conclusions, less appropriate analyses in the context of unplanned deviations, and greater bias and errors in theoretical inferences. (shrink)

During multiple testing, researchers often adjust their alpha level to control the familywise error rate for a statistical inference about a joint union alternative hypothesis (e.g., “H1,1 or H1,2”). However, in some cases, they do not make this inference. Instead, they make separate inferences about each of the individual hypotheses that comprise the joint hypothesis (e.g., H1,1 and H1,2). For example, a researcher might use a Bonferroni correction to adjust their alpha level from the conventional level of 0.050 to 0.025 (...) when testing H1,1 and H1,2, find a significant result for H1,1 (p < 0.025) and not for H1,2 (p > .0.025), and so claim support for H1,1 and not for H1,2. However, these separate individual inferences do not require an alpha adjustment. Only a statistical inference about the union alternative hypothesis “H1,1 or H1,2” requires an alpha adjustment because it is based on “at least one” significant result among the two tests, and so it refers to the familywise error rate. Hence, an inconsistent correction occurs when a researcher corrects their alpha level during multiple testing but does not make an inference about a union alternative hypothesis. In the present article, I discuss this inconsistent correction problem, including its reduction in statistical power for tests of individual hypotheses and its potential causes vis-à-vis error rate confusions and the alpha adjustment ritual. I also provide three illustrations of inconsistent corrections from recent psychology studies. I conclude that inconsistent corrections represent a symptom of statisticism, and I call for a more nuanced inference-based approach to multiple testing corrections. (shrink)

Metascientists have studied questionable research practices in science. The present article considers the parallel concept of questionable metascience practices (QMPs). A QMP is a research practice, assumption, or perspective that has been questioned by several commentators as being potentially problematic for metascience and/or the science reform movement. The present article reviews ten QMPs that relate to criticism, replication, bias, generalization, and the characterization of science. Specifically, the following QMPs are considered: (1) rejecting or ignoring self-criticism; (2) a fast ‘n’ bropen (...) scientific criticism style; (3) overplaying the role of replication in science; (4) assuming a replication rate is “too low” without specifying an “acceptable” rate; (5) an unacknowledged metabias towards explaining the replication crisis in terms of researcher bias; (6) assuming that researcher bias can be reduced; (7) devaluing exploratory results as being more “tentative” than confirmatory results; (8) presuming that questionable research practices are problematic research practices; (9) focusing on knowledge accumulation; and (10) focusing on specific scientific methods. It is stressed that only some metascientists engage in some QMPs some of the time, and that these QMPs may not always be problematic. Research is required to estimate the prevalence and impact of QMPs. In the meantime, QMPs should be viewed as invitations to ask questions about how we go about doing better metascience. (shrink)

The National Center for Biomedical Ontology is a consortium that comprises leading informaticians, biologists, clinicians, and ontologists, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Roadmap, to develop innovative technology and methods that allow scientists to record, manage, and disseminate biomedical information and knowledge in machine-processable form. The goals of the Center are (1) to help unify the divergent and isolated efforts in ontology development by promoting high quality open-source, standards-based tools to create, manage, and use ontologies, (2) to create (...) new software tools so that scientists can use ontologies to annotate and analyze biomedical data, (3) to provide a national resource for the ongoing evaluation, integration, and evolution of biomedical ontologies and associated tools and theories in the context of driving biomedical projects (DBPs), and (4) to disseminate the tools and resources of the Center and to identify, evaluate, and communicate best practices of ontology development to the biomedical community. Through the research activities within the Center, collaborations with the DBPs, and interactions with the biomedical community, our goal is to help scientists to work more effectively in the e-science paradigm, enhancing experiment design, experiment execution, data analysis, information synthesis, hypothesis generation and testing, and understand human disease. (shrink)

Why do voters seek to change the political landscape or to retain it? System justification theory proposes that a separate system motive to preserve the existing order drives support for the status-quo, and that this motivation operates independently from personal and collective interests. But how does this explanation apply to recent populist shifts in the political order such as Brexit and the emergence of Donald Trump? While the system motive may seem useful in understanding why the usual progressives may want (...) to stick with an established order, it seems insufficient to explain why the more conservative voters would want to upend the establishment. Thus, we compared SJT’s system motive explanation for the system attitudes of voters on both sides of the political divide to an alternative explanation drawn from the newer social identity model of system attitudes. According to SIMSA, the difficulty in explaining the system attitudes of Brexit/Trump and Remain/Clinton voters from SJT’s system motive standpoint can be resolved by focusing instead on the collective interests that both camps seek to satisfy with their votes. We examined these explanations in two studies conducted soon after Brexit and Trump’s election in 2016, with results providing more support for SIMSA than for SJT. (shrink)

This research draws from three distinct lines of research on the link between emotions and intergroup bias as springboard to integrative, new hypotheses. Past research suggests that emotions extrinsic to the outgroup (or “incidental”), and intrinsic to the outgroup (or “integral”), produce valence-congruent effects on intergroup bias when relevant or “applicable” to the outgroup (e.g., incidental/integral anger and ethnic outgroups). These emotions produce valenceincongruent effects when irrelevant or “non-applicable” to the outgroup (e.g., incidental/integral sadness and happiness, and ethnic outgroups). Internally (...) valid and ecologically sound tests of these contrasting effects are missing; hence we examined them experimentally in meaningful settings of interethnic contact. To this end, we hybridized established research paradigms in mood and intergroup contact research; this approach enabled us to use same materials and induction methods to instigate incidental and integral emotions in a single research design. In Experiment 1, White Australian students (N= 93) inin vivoreal face-to-face contact with an ethnic tutor in their classroom displayed less interethnic bias when incidentally sad (vs. happy) or integrally happy (vs. sad). In Experiment 2, White American males' (N= 492) anti-Arab bias displayed divergent effects under incidental vs. integral (non-applicable) sadness/happiness and similar effects under incidental vs. integral (applicable) anger. The role of perceptions of agency in the emotion-inducing situation is also explored, tested, and explained drawing from mainstream emotion theory. As expected, integral and incidentalapplicableemotions caused valence congruent effects, at the opposite sides of the subjective agency spectrum, by encouraging the generalization of dislike from the outgroup contact partner to the outgroup as a whole. On the other hand, incidental-non-applicable emotions caused valence-incongruent effects on bias, under high agency conditions, by encouraging (non-partner-centered) heuristic processing. Because of the improved methodology, these effects can be regarded as genuine and not the byproduct of methodological artifacts. This theory-driven and empirically sound analysis of the interplay between emotion source, emotion applicability and subjective agency in intergroup contact can increase the precision of emotion-based bias reduction strategies by deepening understanding of the emotion conditions that lead to intergroup bias attenuation vs. exacerbation. (shrink)

It has seemed, to many, that there is an important connection between the ways in which some theoretical posits explain our observations, and our reasons for being ontologically committed to those posits. One way to spell out this connection is in terms of what has become known as the explanatory criterion of ontological commitment. This is, roughly, the view that we ought to posit only those entities that are indispensable to our best explanations. Our primary aim is to argue that (...) the moral nonnaturalist places herself in an invidious position if she simply accepts that the nonnatural moral facts that she posits are not explanatory. Instead, we offer the nonnaturalist an alternative strategy for dealing with moral explanations. The strategy is to retain the explanatory criterion of ontological commitment and maintain that moral properties are, in fact, explanatory. The explanations they provide are not causal explanations; instead, moral properties make a non-causal difference to the physical facts. (shrink)

A number of philosophers defend naturalistic moral realism by appeal to an externalist semantics for moral predicates. The application of semantic externalism to moral predicates has been attacked by Terence Horgan and Mark Timmons in a series of papers that make use of their “ Moral Twin Earth ” thought experiment. In response, several defenders of naturalistic moral realism have claimed that the Moral Twin Earth thought experiment is misleading and yields distorted and inaccurate semantic intuitions. If they are (...) right, the intuitions generated by Moral Twin Earth cannot be appealed to in arguments against externalist moral semantics. The most developed case against the Moral Twin Earth argument that follows this strategy is found in a paper by Stephen Laurence, Eric Margolis and Angus Dawson. Here I argue that their attack on the Moral Twin Earth thought experiment fails. Laurence, Margolis and Dawson have not shown that we have reason to distrust the semantic intuitions it generates. (shrink)

Terence Horgan and Mark Timmons? Moral Twin Earth thought experiment shows that realist ethical naturalism entails a kind of conceptual relativism about moral predicates. This conceptual relativism implies, further, that Earthlings and Twin Earthlings do not express substantive disagreement with one another. Because this latter implication clashes with considered linguistic intuitions, Horgan and Timmons conclude that we should reject realist ethical naturalism. Against this, several critics recommend that realists ?bite the bullet? with respect to Moral Twin Earth: despite our (...) intuitions, we should accept that the speakers do not disagree. These critics argue that the intuitions elicited by the thought experiment are either the result of a failure on the part of readers to appreciate hidden details of the Moral Twin Earth case, or else they are mere artifacts of readers? epistemic limitations. In this paper, I show that the Moral Twin Earth argument prevails against this line of attack. (shrink)

Terence Horgan and Mark Timmons's Moral Twin Earth thought experiment poses a serious challenge for an influential kind of moral realism. It presents us with a case in which it is intuitive that two speakers are expressing a substantive disagreement with one another. However, the meta-semantics associated with this relevant form of moral realism entails that the speakers' moral predicates express different semantic contents, and thus, the moral sentences they utter do not express conflicting propositions. Consequently, this variety of (...) moral realism implies, wrongly, that the speakers do not express substantive disagreement after all. Some philosophers have objected to the Moral Twin Earth argument on the grounds that is possible for two speakers to express disagreement with one another, even if the moral sentences they utter do not express conflicting propositions. Heimer Geirsson supports this claim by appeal to the distinction between semantic reference and speaker reference. David Merli supports the same claim by noting that speakers whose moral sentences do not express conflicting propositions may nevertheless express a non-moral, practical disagreement over what to do. In this article, I argue that neither Geirsson nor Merli provides moral realists with a satisfying response to the Moral Twin Earth argument. (shrink)

In order to defend the Cornell variety of naturalistic moral realism from Horgan and Timmons’ Moral Twin Earth objection, several philosophers have proposed what I call Normatively Enriched Moral Meta-Semantics. According to NEMMS, the natural properties that serve as the contents of moral predicates are fixed by non- moral normative facts. In this paper, I elucidate two versions of NEMMS: one proposed by David Brink, and the other proposed by Mark van Roojen. I show what these meta-semantics have in (...) common, and how each one promises the Cornell realist a response to the Moral Twin Earth objection. I then argue that Cornell realists ought to be wary of adopting NEMMS. A naturalist realist who adopts this meta-semantics confronts a trilemma. The proponent of NEMMS owes a meta-ethical account of the relevant content-fixing normative facts. Such facts are either reducible to recognizably natural facts or they are not. If they are not reducible, then NEMMS entails the denial of ethical naturalism. If such facts are taken to be reducible to facts about agents’ actual or hypothetical attitudes, then the account renders moral facts stance-dependent. Consequently, moral realism is false. Alternatively, one might propose that the content-fixing normative facts are reducible to attitude-independent natural facts. However, such a proposal is refuted by its own Twin Earth objection. (shrink)

The inflation of Type I error rates is thought to be one of the causes of the replication crisis. Questionable research practices such as p-hacking are thought to inflate Type I error rates above their nominal level, leading to unexpectedly high levels of false positives in the literature and, consequently, unexpectedly low replication rates. In this article, I offer an alternative view. I argue that questionable and other research practices do not usually inflate relevant Type I error rates. I begin (...) with an introduction to Type I error rates that distinguishes them from theoretical errors. I then illustrate my argument with respect to model misspecification, multiple testing, selective inference, forking paths, exploratory analyses, p-hacking, optional stopping, double dipping, and HARKing. In each case, I demonstrate that relevant Type I error rates are not usually inflated above their nominal level, and in the rare cases that they are, the inflation is easily identified and resolved. I conclude that the replication crisis may be explained, at least in part, by researchers’ misinterpretation of statistical errors and their underestimation of theoretical errors. (shrink)

For more than a quarter of a century, Hubert L. Dreyfus has been the leading voice in American philosophy for the continuing relevance of phenomenology, particularly as developed by Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Dreyfus has influenced a generation of students and a wide range of colleagues, and these volumes are an excellent representation of the extent and depth of that influence.In keeping with Dreyfus's openness to others' ideas, many of the essays in this volume take the form (...) of arguments with various of his positions. The essays focus on the dialogue with the continental philosophical tradition, in particular the work of Heidegger, that has played a foundational role in Dreyfus's thinking. The sections are Philosophy and Authenticity; Modernity, Self, and the World; and Heideggerian Encounters. The book concludes with Dreyfus's responses to the essays.Contributors : William D. Blattner, Taylor Carman, David R. Cerbone, Dagfinn Føllesdal, Charles Guignon, Michel Haar, Beatrice Han, Alastair Hannay, John Haugeland, Randall Havas, Jeff Malpas, Mark Okrent, Richard Rorty, Julian Young, Michael E. Zimmerman. (shrink)

Prompted by the development of the Theory of Challenge and Threat States in Athletes (Jones et al, 2009), recent years has witnessed a considerable increase in research examining challenge and threat in sport. This manuscript provides a critical review of the literature examining challenge and threat in sport, tracing its historical development and some of the current empirical ambiguities. In an attempt to reconcile some of these ambiguities, and utilising neurobiological evidence associated with approach- and avoidance-motivation (cf. Elliot & Covington, (...) 2001), this paper draws upon the Evaluative Space Model (ESM: Cacioppo et al., 1997) and considers the implications for understanding challenge and threat in sport. For example, rather than see challenge and threat as opposite ends of a single bipolar continuum, the ESM implies that individuals could be (1) challenged, (2) threatened, (3) challenged and threatened, or (4) neither challenged or threatened by a particular stimulus. From this perspective it could be argued that the appraisal of some sport situations as both challenging and threatening could be advantageous, whereas the current literature seems to imply that the appraisal of stress as a threat is maladaptive for performance. In drawing upon the ESM, we outline the Evaluative Space Approach to Challenge and Threat and provide several testable hypotheses for advancing understanding of challenge and threat (in sport). We also outline a number of cardiovascular and experiential measures that can be used to examine these hypotheses. In sum, this paper provides a significant theoretical, empirical and practical contribution to our understanding of challenge and threat (in sport). (shrink)

If there is to be a natural theory of consciousness that would satisfy both philosophers and scientists, it must be based on naturalistic data and minimal clutter accumulated from semantic arguments. Carruthers offers a 'natural' theory of consciousness that is rather myopic. To explore the evolutionary basis of consciousness, a natural theory should include comparative psychological and neurological data that encompass nonlinguistic measures. Such an approach could provide a clearer picture of the adaptive function, mechanisms, and origins of consciousness.

Anthropology is a significant matter within the church. A person's doctrine of humanity will inevitably shape the way a person thinks about the church, salvation, and in part, God. This dissertation is written out of concern for the potential harm that a faulty anthropology may do to the church. This study is concerned with exposing an approach to leadership within the church that is based on a faulty anthropology. Servant leadership has been hailed as the answer to the leadership crisis (...) that has plagued businesses, political offices, and churches. It is said that the authoritarian, monarchical style of leadership in the twentieth century no longer meets the needs of the current setting. In 1970 Robert K. Greenleaf---the chief advocate of servant leadership---proposed servant leadership as the emerging style that was prepared to address the social unrest of the 1960's and 1970's. He argued that the current leadership style must change---adapt to the emerging needs of the people. Greenleaf developed his ideas on servant leadership in the context of his reading of Hermann Hesse and Albert Camus. The repercussions of Robert K. Greenleaf's anthropology are evident in his view of human transformation. ;This study exposes the philosophical and theological underpinnings of Greenleaf's work on servant leadership as a distortion of the nature of humanity to the point that it leaves the doctrines of sin and salvation bereft of Christian significance. Since many within the church have used Greenleaf in their search for a biblical leadership paradigm, a Christian theological response to Greenleaf's assessment of humanity and human transformation will conclude this study. (shrink)

Huston Smith has argued that the universal source of wholeness, which he refers to as the primordial tradition, is essential to a meaningful life. Indeed embracing this tradition is, said Smith, an act of rejoining the human race. Our current forms of organized religion offer us ritualized expressions of this tradition, yet often fail to provide us with transpersonal growth; it is this transpersonal growth that reconnects us with the source of religion. This essay differentiates mainstream religion from a way (...) that we can begin to construct a physical theory of the primordial tradition–a necessary first step toward reclaiming the source of religion. (shrink)

S. Kierkegaard argued that our highest task as humans is to realize an “intensified” or “developed” form of subjectivity—his name for self-responsible agency. A self-responsible agent is not only responsible for her actions. She also bears responsibility for the individual that she is. In this paper, I review Kierkegaard’s account of the role that our capacity for reflective self-evaluation plays in making us responsible for ourselves. It is in the exercise of this capacity that we can go from being subjective (...) in a degraded sense—merely being an idiosyncratic jumble of accidental and arbitrary attitudes and affects—to being a subject in the ideal or eminent sense. The latter requires the exercise of my capacity for reflective self-evaluation, since it involves recognizing, identifying with, and reinforcing those aspects of my overall make-up that allow me to express successfully a coherent way of being in the world. Kierkegaard argues that taking immortality seriously is one way to achieve the right kind of reflective stance on one’s own character or personality. Thus, Kierkegaard argues that immortality as a theoretical posit can contribute to one’s effort to own or assume responsibility for being the person one is. (shrink)

Each year individuals are required to execute millions of authorizations for the release of their health records as a condition of employment, applying for various types of insurance, and submitting claims for benefits. Generally, there are no restrictions on the scope of information released pursuant to these compelled authorizations, and the development of a nationwide system of interoperable electronic health records will increase the amount of health information released. After quantifying the extent of these disclosures, this article discusses why it (...) is important to limit disclosures of health information for nonmedical purposes as well as how it may be possible to do so. (shrink)

Abstract:Moral imagination is a reasoning process thought to counter the organizational factors that corrupt ethical judgment. We describe the psychology of moral imagination as composed of the four decision processes identified by Rest (1986), i.e., moral sensitivity, moral judgment, moral intention, and moral behavior. We examine each process in depth, distilling extant psychological research and indicating organizational implications. The conclusion offers suggestions for future research.The majority of men are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others—terribly objective sometimes—but the real (...) task is in fact to be objective toward one’s self and subjective toward all others. (shrink)

The essays in this volume reflect this desire to "make a difference"—not just in the world of academic philosophy, but in the broader world.

Researchers increasingly rely on large data sets of health information, often linked with biological specimens. In recent years, the argument has been made that obtaining informed consent for conducting records-based research is unduly burdensome and results in ?consent bias.? As a type of selection bias, consent bias is said to exist when the group giving researchers access to their data differs from the group denying access. Therefore, to promote socially beneficial research, it is argued that consent should be unnecessary. After (...) analyzing the biostatistics evidence and bioethics arguments, the article concludes that (1) claims about the amount of consent bias are overstated; (2) commonly used statistical methods usually can account for consent bias; and (3) any residual effects of consent bias are below an acceptable level of imprecision and constitute a reasonable social cost for conducting ethically responsible research. (shrink)

Huston Smith has argued that the universal source of wholeness, which he refers to as the primordial tradition, is essential to a meaningful life. Indeed embracing this tradition is, said Smith, an act of rejoining the human race. Our current forms of organized religion offer us ritualized expressions of this tradition, yet often fail to provide us with transpersonal growth; it is this transpersonal growth that reconnects us with the source of religion. This essay differentiates mainstream religion from a way (...) that we can begin to construct a physical theory of the primordial tradition–a necessary first step toward reclaiming the source of religion. (shrink)

I argue in this paper that Heidegger, contrary to the view of many scholars, in fact endorsed a view of truth as a sort of correspondence. I first show how it is a mistake to take Heidegger's notion of 'unconcealment' as a definition of propositional truth. It is thus not only possible but also essential to disambiguate Heidegger's use of the word 'truth', which he occasionally used to refer to both truth as it is ordinarily understood and unconcealment understood as (...) the condition of the possibility of truth. I then show how Heidegger accepted that propositional truth, or 'correctness', as he sometimes called it, consists in our utterances or beliefs corresponding to the way things are. Heidegger's objection to correspondence theories of truth was not directed at the notion of correspondence as such, but rather at the way in which correspondence is typically taken to consist in an agreement between representations and objects. Indeed, Heidegger took his account of unconcealment as explaining how it is possible for propositions to correspond to the world, thus making unconcealment the ground of propositional truth. I conclude by discussing briefly some of the consequences for Heidegger interpretation which follow from a correct understanding of Heidegger's notion of propositional truth. (shrink)

Beginning in the 20th century, scientific research came to be dominated by a growing class of credentialed, professional scientists who overwhelmingly displaced the learned amateurs of an earlier time. By the end of the century, however, the exclusive realm of professional scientists conducting research was joined, to a degree, by “citizen scientists.” The term originally encompassed non-professionals assisting professional scientists by contributing observations and measurements to ongoing research enterprises. These collaborations were especially common in the environmental sciences, where citizen scientists (...) participated in counting wildlife and measuring environmental conditions. Later, patient groups began to play a more active role in supporting clinical trials and collecting health records from affected individuals. (shrink)

Calling for an expanded framework of EuroAmerican science's methodology whose perspective acknowledges both quantitative/etic and qualitative/emic orientations is the broad focus of this article. More specifically this article argues that our understanding of shamanic and/or other related states of consciousness has been greatly enhanced through ethnographic methods, yet in their present form these methods fail to provide the means to fully comprehend these states. They fail, or are limited, because this approach is only a “cognitive interpretation” or “metanarrative” of the (...) actual experience and not the experience itself. Consequently this perspective is also limited because the researcher continues to assess his or her data through the lens of their symbolic constructs, thereby preventing them from truly experiencing shamanic and psi/spirit approaches to knowing since the data collection process does not “in and of itself” affect the observer. We, therefore, need expanded ethnographic methods that include within their approaches an understanding of methods and techniques to experientially encounter these states of consciousness—and become transformed by them. Our becoming transformed and then recollecting our ethnoautobiographical experiences is the means toward a new kind of science and its methods of inquiry that this article seeks to encourage. (shrink)

Public health is a dynamic field. Outbreaks of new diseases, as well as changing patterns of population growth, economic development, and lifestyle trends all may threaten public health and thus demand a public health response. As the practice of public health evolves, there is an ongoing need to reassess its scientific, ethical, legal, and social underpinnings. Such a reappraisal must consider the disagreement among public health officials, public health scholars, elected officials, and the public about the proper role of public (...) health and the distinctions, for example, between public health and clinical care, and public health and health promotion.In this article I will attempt to characterize the main points of contention as well as offer my own views regarding the proper scope of public health. Greater clarity and consensus on the meaning of public health are likely to lead to more efficient and effective public health interventions as well as increased public and political support for public health activities. (shrink)

This book includes ten essays that trace the notion of unconcealment as it develops from Heidegger's early writings to his later work, shaping his philosophy of truth, language and history. 'Unconcealment' is the idea that what entities are depends on the conditions that allow them to manifest themselves. This concept, central to Heidegger's work, also applies to worlds in a dual sense: first, a condition of entities manifesting themselves is the existence of a world; and second, worlds themselves are disclosed. (...) The unconcealment or disclosure of a world is the most important historical event, and Heidegger believes there have been a number of quite distinct worlds that have emerged and disappeared in history. Heidegger's thought as a whole can profitably be seen as working out the implications of the original understanding of unconcealment. (shrink)

For fifty years Hubert Dreyfus has done pioneering work which brings phenomenology and existentialism to bear on the philosophical and scientific study of the mind. This is a selection of his most influential essays, developing his critique of the representational model of the mind in analytical philosophy of mind and mainstream cognitive science.

Huston Smith has argued that the universal source of wholeness, which he refers to as the primordial tradition, is essential to a meaningful life. Indeed embracing this tradition is, said Smith, an act of rejoining the human race. Our current forms of organized religion offer us ritualized expressions of this tradition, yet often fail to provide us with transpersonal growth; it is this transpersonal growth that reconnects us with the source of religion. This essay differentiates mainstream religion from a way (...) that we can begin to construct a physical theory of the primordial tradition–a necessary first step toward reclaiming the source of religion. (shrink)

Public health is a dynamic field. Outbreaks of new diseases, as well as changing patterns of population growth, economic development, and lifestyle trends all may threaten public health and thus demand a public health response. As the practice of public health evolves, there is an ongoing need to reassess its scientific, ethical, legal, and social underpinnings. Such a reappraisal must consider the disagreement among public health officials, public health scholars, elected officials, and the public about the proper role of public (...) health and the distinctions, for example, between public health and clinical care, and public health and health promotion.In this article I will attempt to characterize the main points of contention as well as offer my own views regarding the proper scope of public health. Greater clarity and consensus on the meaning of public health are likely to lead to more efficient and effective public health interventions as well as increased public and political support for public health activities. (shrink)

Dasein and being-in-the-world -- The world -- The structure of being-in-the-world, pt. 1: Disposedness and moods -- The structure of being-in-the-world, pt. 2: Understanding and interpretation -- Everydayness and the 'one' -- Death and authenticity -- Truth and art -- Language -- Technology -- Our mortal dwelling with things.