Boyer & Lienard (B&L) elegantly elaborate the links between normal motivational systems and psychopathology and address the evolutionary and cultural context of ritualized behaviors. However, their model omits a key property of the security-motivation (hazard-precaution) system, and this property suggests that ritualized behavior may generate an alternate satiety signal by substituting, in place of uncertainty, a problem that is verifiably solvable. (Published Online February 8 2007).

Two experiments report on the construction of the Sense of Agency Rating Scale (SOARS), a new measure for quantifying alterations to agency. In Experiment 1, 370 participants completed a preliminary version of the scale following hypnosis. Factor analysis revealed two underlying factors: Involuntariness and Effortlessness. In Experiment 2, this two factor structure was confirmed in a sample of 113 low, medium and high hypnotisable participants. The two factors, Involuntariness and Effortlessness, correlated significantly with hypnotisability and pass rates for ideomotor, challenge (...) and cognitive items. Twelve week test-retest correlations showed that Involuntariness was highly stable, but Effortlessness only moderately stable. Analysis of the combined datasets from Experiments 1 and 2 showed both SOARS scores were significantly related to the derived factors of Woody, Barnier, and McConkey's (2005) 4-factor model of hypnotisability. This scale clarifies conceptual confusion around agentive action and provides empirical support for a multifactorial account of sense of agency. (shrink)

GIRL IN MUSEUM: It restates the negativeness of the universe, the hideous lonely emptiness of existence, nothingness, the predicament of man forced to live in a barren, godless eternity, like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void, with nothing but waste, horror, and degradation, forming a useless bleak straightjacket in a black absurd cosmos.

C. S. Lewis is one of the most beloved Christian apologists of the twentieth century; David Hume and Bertrand Russell are among Christianity’s most important critics. This book puts these three intellectual giants in conversation with one another on various important questions: the existence of God, suffering, morality, reason, joy, miracles, and faith. Alongside irreconcilable differences, surprising areas of agreement emerge. Curious readers will find penetrating insights in the reasoned dialogue of these three great thinkers.

Forms, Matter and Mind. Three Strands in Plato’s Metaphysics -/- This book offers a new interpretation of Plato’s conception of man and of how it develops in the Corpus. Commonly, Plato’s anthropology is considered to be a version of naïve Orphism with the soul being a heavenly, but fallen, daemon. This is shown to be a misleading over-simplification. An examination of three basic and interrelated strands in Plato’s thought (Forms, Matter and Mind) demonstrates how Plato’s conception of man is an (...) integrated part of his metaphysics and develops with it. Thus, a change can be seen from a fairly unreflecting Socratic beginning via a transcendent soul to a rather sophisticated ‘Aristotelianism’. What is at issue is a non-materialistic, or more precisely, a dualistic view of man that has been discredited in modern times by two preconceptions: a widespread opinion that dualism must mean or involve Cartesianism, which seems untenable, and an equally widespread and, until recently, unshaken belief that man can be exhaustively described in materialistic terms. Both assumptions are questioned today. The present work shows that Plato’s view of man is fundamentally different from Cartesianism and furthermore that he rejects the materialist view as well. Hence, the book shows Plato’s increasing relevance for the current debate on the nature and possibilities of man. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.2 (2002) 155-157 [Access article in PDF] Dispensing With the Dynamic Conscious J. Melvin Woody FREUD'S THEORY OF UNCONSCIOUS mental processes depends upon an extremely narrow conception of consciousness. O'Brien and Jureidini rightly focus attention on the limitations of that conception and argue that it is time to dispense with the resultant conception of the unconscious. Of course, scientists often give narrower, technical meanings (...) to ordinary words like matter and space, but in the midst of all the recently revived psychological and philosophical debates about the nature and existence of consciousness, the persistence of Freud's way of distinguishing the two can only breed confusion. Attempts to shore up or defend the dynamic unconscious of psychoanalytic theory by appeal to discussions of unconscious rules and processes in cognitive psychology attests to the potential for confusion thus spawned. In an early issue of this journal, James Phillips and I charted the differences between the neurophysiologic, cognitive, and dynamic conceptions of the unconscious (1995). Like O'Brien and Jureidini, we concluded that the evidence of a cognitive unconscious does not support the postulation of a dynamic unconscious. O'Brien and Jureidini go further in arguing that the two are incompatible. Elsewhere, I have argued that the Freudian unconscious is a hermeneutic myth, the result of a misunderstanding of the nature of interpretation (2003). Because I am in substantial agreement with them and already on record with arguments convergent with theirs on both these fronts, I will focus here on the source of confusion in the dynamic conception of consciousness and on their illuminating exploration of its limitations.Toward the end of his 1915 essay, "The Unconscious," Freud explains that the difference between conscious and unconscious thought hinges on the role of language: What we could permissibly call the conscious idea of the object can now be split up into the idea of the word (verbal idea) and the idea of the thing (concrete idea)... It strikes us all at once that now we know what is the difference between a conscious and an unconscious idea. The two are not, as we supposed, different records of the same content situate in different parts of the mind, nor yet different functional states of cathexis in the same part; but the conscious idea comprises the concrete idea plus the verbal idea corresponding to it, whilst the unconscious idea is that of the thing alone.... Now too, we are in a position to state precisely what it is that repression denies to the rejected idea in the transference neuroses—namely, translation of the idea into words which are to remain attached to the object. The idea which is not put into words or the mental act which has not received hyper-cathexis then remains in the unconscious in a state of repression. (pp. 201-202) This restriction of consciousness to verbal thought processes is not simply an innocent stipulative definition. It has perniciously misleading implications. For one thing, as Antonio Damasio points out in The Feeling of What Happens, it means that all other animals are unconscious for want of any language. Damasio recalls that when he asked what produces consciousness while he was a medical student, [End Page 155] Curiously, I always got the same answer; language did it. I was told that creatures without language were limited to their uncognizant existence but not we fortunate humans because language made us know... The answer sounded too easy, far too simple for something which I then imagined unconquerably complex, and also quite implausible, given what I saw when I went to the zoo. (Damasio 1999, 107) As Damasio notes, the trouble with explaining consciousness as a function of language is not just that it denies awareness of experience to all other animals, thus perpetuating the Cartesian view of animals as automatons, but that for all its complexities, language is far too simple to encompass the full complex range of conscious experience. O'Brien and Jureidini do well to highlight how much of our conscious experience never finds linguistic expression, indeed, how much experience seems to... (shrink)

For the purpose of contributing to a clarification of the term “process”, different kinds of musical processes are investigated: A rule-determined phase shifting process in Steve Reich's Piano Phase (1966), a model for an indeterminate composition process in John Cage's Variations II (1961), a number of evolution processes in György Ligeti's In zart fliessender Bewegung (1976), and a generative process of fractal nature in Per Nørgård's Second Symphony (1970). In conclusion I propose that six process categories should be included in (...) a typology of processes: Rule-determined, goal-directed and indeterminate transformation processes, and rule-determined, goal-directed and indeterminate generative processes. (shrink)

There are several theses in political science that are usually explicitly called ‘laws’. Other theses are generally thought of as laws, but often without being explicitly labelled as such. Still other claims are well-supported and arguably interesting, while no one would be tempted to call them laws. This situation raises philosophical questions: which theses deserve to be called laws and which not? And how should we decide about this? In this paper we develop and motivate a strategy for thinking about (...) laws in political science which integrates two core concepts: spatio-temporal stability and social mechanisms. The proposed strategy is a set of guidelines that political scientists can use to reflect on and argue about specific cases within their discipline, not a clear-cut demarcation criterion. We defend and motivate this strategy and apply it to two cases (one with respect to state repression, one about parliamentary elections). After we have developed and motivated our strategy for political science, we show that our proposal is relevant for other disciplines in the social sciences. We explain how our views fit into critical realism and embed them in the debate on laws in general philosophy of science and in the philosophy of the social sciences. (shrink)

Develops a logical analysis of dialogue in which two or more parties attempt to advance their own interests. It includes a classification of the major types of dialogues and a discussion of several important informal fallacies.

(2003). Starting with the Indians: A response to Scott Pratt's Native Pragmatism. Philosophy & Geography: Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 237-245.

This essay explores the connection between representation and explanation in the sciences. I suggest that scientific representation schemes be viewed as pragmatic tools for acquiring the sort of articulated awareness that is the hallmark of nontrivial knowledge. Crystal field theory in chemistry illustrates this perspective. Certain representations achieve the status of being paradigmatically explanatory, thereby shaping models of intelligibility. In turn, these explanatory preferences serve largely to define and differentiate disciplinary communities by implicitly endorsing particular epistemic aims and values. In (...) this way, the pragmatic nature of explanatory discourse effectively grants its intellectual utility. (shrink)

Most contemporary chemists consider quantum mechanics to be the foundational theory of their discipline, although few of the calculations that a strict reduction would seem to require have ever been produced. In this essay I discuss contemporary algebraic and diagrammatic representations of molecular systems derived from quantum mechanical models, specifically configuration interaction wavefunctions for ab initio calculations and molecular orbital energy diagrams. My aim is to suggest that recent dissatisfaction with reductive accounts of chemical theory may stem from both the (...) inability of standard accounts of reduction to incorporate the diverse forms of representation found in chemical practice and our philosophical predilection to analyze all connections between theories in terms of logical reduction. (shrink)

In everyday life we often act adequately, yet without deliberation. For instance, we immediately obtain and maintain an appropriate distance from others in an elevator. The notion of normativity implied here is a very basic one, namely distinguishing adequate from inadequate, correct from incorrect, or better from worse in the context of a particular situation. In the first part of this paper I investigate such ‘situated normativity’ by focusing on unreflective expert action. More particularly, I use Wittgenstein’s examples of craftsmen (...) (tailors and architects) absorbed in action to introduce situated normativity. Situated normativity can be understood as the normative aspect of embodied cognition in unreflective skillful action. I develop Wittgenstein’s insight that a peculiar type of affective behaviour, ‘directed discontent’, is essential for getting things right without reflection. Directed discontent is a reaction of appreciation in action and is introduced as a paradigmatic expression of situated normativity. In the second part I discuss Wittgenstein’s ideas on the normativity of what he calls ‘blind’ rule-following and the ‘bedrock’ of immediate action. What matters for understanding the normativity of (even ‘blind’) rule-following, is not that one has the capacity for linguistic articulation or reflection but that one is reliably participating in a communal custom. In the third part I further investigate the complex relationships between unreflective skillful action, perception, emotion, and normativity. Part of this entails an account of the link between normativity at the level of the expert’s socio-cultural practice and the individual’s situated and lived normativity. (shrink)

The counterfactual comparative account of harm faces problems in cases that involve overdetermination and preemption. An influential strategy for dealing with these problems, drawing on a suggestion made by Derek Parfit, is to appeal to _plural harm_—several events _together_ harming someone. We argue that the most well-known version of this strategy, due to Neil Feit, as well as Magnus Jedenheim Edling’s more recent version, is fatally flawed. We also present some general reasons for doubting that the overdetermination and preemption problems (...) for the counterfactual comparative account can be satisfactorily solved by appealing to plural harm. (shrink)

Lloyd Wells' four examples of loss of self challenge both philosophers and clinicians to ponder just what it is that has been lost in such cases. If a self has been lost, who lost it? And how can personal identity be so insecure that it can be lost in so many different ways? Empiricist thinkers, both Western and Eastern, have questioned the very existence of a self; much recent thought about the nature of the self has converged on notions that (...) it is not a substantial reality, but a narrative, the product of the stories that we tell ourselves about our lives so that we can knit together our experiences into a continuous plot. Owen Flanagan and Valerie Hardcastle have already brought one version of this theory to bear on one of Wells' cases and James Phillips explores the capacity of narrative theory to account for each of these cases in an accompanying essay. In this essay, I challenge the adequacy of narrative theories of the self in general and their application to these particular cases. The details of Wells' cases highlight the limitations of narrative theories to discursive, secondary process thought by directing attention to the richer and more expressively forceful resources of metaphor and nondiscursive forms of symbolism. Narrative unity or continuity is no guarantee against experiences of the loss of self. The monological character of narrative masks the sociality of the self, the ways in which each individual self is constituted and threatened by interactions with other selves. I argue for the power of drama, opera, music, dance, and spatial forms of symbolism to cope with the diversity of what Flanagan has dubbed the multiplex self, (Flanagan 1994) especially when narrative fails. Language and narrative certainly play a crucial role in human self-consciousness. But human imagination and art command other resources as well and a theory that acknowledges their contributions can accept and incorporate the insights of narrative theories without confining itself to the limitations of story telling. (shrink)

Stimmung in music -- The philosophy of Stimmung -- Playing in between -- History -- Duration -- Aftersong.

The book revives the neutral monism of Mach, James, and Russell and applies the updated view to the problem of redefining physicalism, explaining the origins of sensation, and the problem of deriving extended physical objects and systems from an ontology of events.

A consideration of Mach's elements, his philosophy of neutral monism, and philosophy of physics, especially space and time, much of it based on unpublished writings from the Nachlass and other original sources. The historical connection between Mach and logical positivism is shown to be superficial at best, and Mach's elements are shown to be mind independent natural qualities (world-elements) with dynamic force, not limited to human sensations.

In Consequentialism Reconsidered, Carlson strives to find a plausible formulation of the structural part of consequentialism. Key notions are analyzed, such as outcomes, alternatives and performability. Carlson argues that consequentialism should be understood as a maximizing rather than a satisficing theory, and as temporally neutral rather than future oriented. He also shows that certain moral theories cannot be reformulated as consequentialist theories. The relevant alternatives for an agent in a situation are taken to comprise all actions that they can perform (...) in the situation. The defense of this idea necessitates certain modifications to the standard consequentialist criteria of obligatoriness, rightness and wrongness. The problem of whether agents should adapt their actions to their own future actions is also addressed. Further, a conditional analysis of performability is suggested, and it is argued that particular actions should in this connection be regarded as `abstract' rather than `concrete'. The final chapter sketches a consequentialist theory for collective agents. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mourning or MelancholiaJ. Melvin Woody (bio)Keywords“objective correlative”, depression, grief, cognitive-affective dissonanceIn a celebrated and controversial critical essay, T.S. Eliot faults Shakespeare's Hamlet on the grounds that the playwright has not provided sufficient “objective correlative” for the moods of his melancholy Dane. For lack of the “complete adequacy of the external to the emotion” that he finds in Shakespeare's other tragedies, Eliot judges that “the play is almost certainly (...) an artistic failure” (Eliot 1921, 101, 98). Dr. Bailey's explanation of Colin's melancholy provokes parallel critical reflections. When his initial expectation that he will discover the cause of depression in traumatic battle experiences in Iraq proves groundless, he finds that cause, instead, in the very absence of traumatic experiences. I cannot but wonder whether the lack of opportunity to prove heroic provides an adequate objective correlative for Colin's mood.To be sure, persistent sadness cannot be regarded as pathological if adequate reasons for sadness also persist. There lies the difference between mourning and melancholia. As Freud remarks at the outset of his comparison of the two, “although grief involves grave departures from the normal attitudes to life, it never occurs to us to regard it as a morbid condition and hand the mourner over to medical treatment.” Even though the mourner displays almost all the same symptoms as melancholia, where there is a recognizable objective correlative, we look upon any interference “as inadvisable or even harmful... because we know so well how to explain it... this attitude does not seem to us pathological” (Freud 1963, 165). Neither the absence of battlefield trauma nor the lack of heroic opportunities seems sufficient occasion for Colin's sadness. But (perhaps) that very explanatory insufficiency justifies regarding his plight as pathological, as a case of melancholia rather than mourning and therefore as warranting psychiatric interference. Insofar as that is true, the self-criticisms engendered by his trauma-free stint in Iraq might best be regarded as an effect rather than cause of his depression. Freud found this sort of “fall in self esteem” that “finds utterance in self reproaches and self revilings” to be the singular feature that distinguishes melancholia from mourning.” In the clinical picture of melancholia, dissatisfaction with the self on moral grounds is far the most outstanding feature” (Freud 1963, 167, 169).Anyone who has dealt with depression will recognize such feelings as standard symptoms. The DSM- IV cites “feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt” as one of the defining criteria of a major depressive episode and “low self esteem” as a diagnostic criterion of dysthymic disorder.Freud speculated that the melancholic's attacks upon himself actually aim at an abandoned but internalized love object. But he acknowledged [End Page 245] that his speculation was based on “a small number of cases the psychogenic nature of which was indisputable,” and that some cases of melancholia suggest more somatic causes. Recent psychiatry has veered sharply toward somatic causes and cures, although the psychogenic nature of depression associated with traumatic stress is generally acknowledged. But in the absence of trauma and stress, as in Colin's case, a somatic account seems more plausible than supposing that the depression is triggered by that very absence.The contrast between somatic and psychological sources of depression threatens to prove distracting, however. We are not faced with a simple either/or here, and however we sort out the genetic, environmental, somatic, and psychological sources of depression in any given case, the depression itself is always a profoundly incarnate experience. Moreover, what seems of especial pertinence to this case, the loss of self-esteem and feelings of worthlessness and guilt seem to prevail regardless of the particular balance of causes of the depression and can, therefore, be regarded as characteristic symptoms rather than explanatory causes of the mood. And the blackness of melancholy typically extends well beyond such negative self-judgments to cast a shadow on the depressive's whole world and future.Epistemology and pathology converge in the clinical diagnosis of depression. Depression seems pathological insofar as it seems unreasonable in light of the circumstances as we apprehend them. Of course, the person who is depressed... (shrink)

This paper examines the responses to advanced and transformative technologies in military literature, attenuates the conclusions of earlier work suggesting that there is an “ignorance of transhumanism” in the military, and updates the current layout of transhuman concerns in military thought. The military is not ignorant of transhuman issues and implications, though there was evidence for this in the past; militaries and non-state actors increasingly use disruptive technologies with what we may call transhuman provenance.

There are important structural similarities in the way that animals and humans engage in unreflective activities, including unreflective social interactions in the case of higher animals. Firstly, it is a form of unreflective embodied intelligence that is ‘motivated’ by the situation. Secondly, both humans and non-human animals are responsive to ‘affordances’ (Gibson 1979); to possibilities for action offered by an environment. Thirdly, both humans and animals are selectively responsive to one affordance rather than another. Social affordances are a subcategory of (...) affordances, namely possibilities for social interaction offered by an environment: a friend’s sad face invites comforting behavior, a person waiting for a coffee machine can afford a conversation, and an extended hand affords a handshake. I will review recent insights in the nature of the bodily intentionality characteristic of unreflective action. Such ‘motor intentionality’ can be characterized as “our direct bodily inclination to act in a situated, environmental context” (Kelly 2005, p. 106). Standard interpretations of bodily intentionality see grasping an object as the paradigmatic example of motor intentionality. I will discuss the implications of another, novel perspective that emphasizes the importance of unreflective switches from one activity to another (Rietveld 2004) and understands bodily intentionality in terms of adequate responsiveness to a field of relevant affordances. In the final section I will discuss some implications for cognitive neuroscientists who use empirical findings related to the ‘mirror neuron system’ as a starting point for a theory of motor intentionality and social cognition. (shrink)

In cognitive science, long-term anticipation, such as when planning to do something next year, is typically seen as a form of ‘higher’ cognition, requiring a different account than the more basic activities that can be understood in terms of responsiveness to ‘affordances,’ i.e. to possibilities for action. Starting from architects that anticipate the possibility to make an architectural installation over the course of many months, in this paper we develop a process-based account of affordances that includes long-term anticipation within its (...) scope. We present a framework in which situations and their affordances unfold, and can be thought of as continuing a history of practices into a current situational activity. In this activity affordances invite skilled participants to act further. Via these invitations one situation develops into the other; an unfolding process that sets up the conditions for its own continuation. Central to our process account of affordances is the idea that engaged individuals can be responsive to the direction of the process to which their actions contribute. Anticipation, at any temporal scale, is then part and parcel of keeping attuned to the movement of the unfolding situations to which an individual contributes. We concretize our account by returning to the example of anticipation observed in architectural practice. This account of anticipation opens the door to considering a wide array of human activities traditionally characterized as ‘higher’ cognition in terms of engaging with affordances. (shrink)

One of the lecture plates in the collection of the Museum of the University of Amsterdam, generally believed to be used by the Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries, has aroused much discussion in relation to the question of whether or not de Vries knew Mendel's laws before he published his rediscovery of them in 1900. The plate suggests that de Vries observed Mendelian segregation ratios in 1895 and 1896 in the progeny of a cross of two varieties of Papaver with (...) different flower colour. According to his own account, it was through this cross that he first deduced the laws of Mendel in 1896. Some researchers have accepted the lecture plate as proof for this claim. My conclusion is that the plate was not made before 1900 but in 1904 for a lecture course in the USA and, as a consequence, that it is not a contemporary piece of evidence. A closer look at the descriptions of the depicted experiment in de Vries' publications revealed that its original goal was not to investigate segregation but to transfer a monstrosity. The segregation of the flower colour was a accidental event. No research notes of the experiment have survived, but a note on an experiment with Veronica, performed in the same successive years as the Papaver experiment and definitely intended to investigate the segregation of flower colour, shows that this experiment was interpreted in a theoretically conceived, more or less Mendelian way. Because of a sloppy performance, no firm conclusions could be drawn from the experiment, but de Vries clearly had the idea of Mendelian segregation in 1896. That he never brought it up before 1900 suggests that he could not establish the general validity of segregation rules, as is shown in the case of Veronica. The reading of Mendel's paper in 1900 immediately put an end to de Vries' doubts. He scrapped the failures and kept the successes, proudly presenting these to the public as proof for the laws of segregation and, at the same time, of the independence of his discovery. (shrink)

One can (for the most part) formulate a model of a classical system in either the Lagrangian or the Hamiltonian framework. Though it is often thought that those two formulations are equivalent in all important ways, this is not true: the underlying geometrical structures one uses to formulate each theory are not isomorphic. This raises the question of whether one of the two is a more natural framework for the representation of classical systems. In the event, the answer is yes: (...) I state and sketch proofs of two technical results—inspired by simple physical arguments about the generic properties of classical systems—to the effect that, in a precise sense, classical systems evince exactly the geometric structure Lagrangian mechanics provides for the representation of systems, and none provided by Hamiltonian. The argument not only clarifies the conceptual structure of the two systems of mechanics, but also their relations to each other and their respective mechanisms for representing physical systems. It also shows why naïvely structural approaches to the representational content of physical theories cannot work. [Lagrange] grasped that he had gained a method of stating dynamical truths in a way, which is perfectly indifferent to the particular methods of measurement employed in fixing the positions of the various parts of the system. Accordingly, he went on to deduce equations of motion, which are equally applicable whatever quantitative measurements have been made, provided that they are adequate to fix positions. The beauty and almost divine simplicity of these equations is such that these formulae are worthy to rank with those mysterious symbols which in ancient times were held directly to indicate the Supreme Reason at the base of all things. (Whitehead [1948], p. 63)1. Introduction2.Classical Systems3. The Possible Interactions of a Classical System and the Structure of Its Space of States4. Classical Systems Are Lagrangian5. Classical Systems Are Not Hamiltonian6. How Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Mechanics Represent Classical Systems7. The Conceptual Structure of Classical Mechanics. (shrink)

An energy condition, in the context of a wide class of spacetime theories, is, crudely speaking, a relation one demands the stress-energy tensor of matter satisfy in order to try to capture the idea that "energy should be positive". The remarkable fact I will discuss in this paper is that such simple, general, almost trivial seeming propositions have profound and far-reaching import for our understanding of the structure of relativistic spacetimes. It is therefore especially surprising when one also learns that (...) we have no clear understanding of the nature of these conditions, what theoretical status they have with respect to fundamental physics, what epistemic status they may have, when we should and should not expect them to be satisfied, and even in many cases how they and their consequences should be interpreted physically. Or so I shall argue, by a detailed analysis of the technical and conceptual character of all the standard conditions used in physics today, including examination of their consequences and the circumstances in which they are believed to be violated. (shrink)

Most contemporary chemists consider quantum mechanics to be the foundational theory of their discipline, although few of the calculations that a strict reduction would seem to require have ever been produced. In this essay I discuss contemporary algebraic and diagrammatic representations of molecular systems derived from quantum mechanical models, specifically configuration interaction wavefunctions for ab initio calculations and molecular orbital energy diagrams. My aim is to suggest that recent dissatisfaction with reductive accounts of chemical theory may stem from both the (...) inability of standard accounts of reduction to incorporate the diverse forms of representation found in chemical practice and our philosophical predilection to analyze all connections between theories in terms of logical reduction. (shrink)

We propose to understand social affordances in the broader context of responsiveness to a field of relevant affordances in general. This perspective clarifies our everyday ability to unreflectively switch between social and other affordances. Moreover, based on our experience with Deep Brain Stimulation for treating obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients, we suggest that psychiatric disorders may affect skilled intentionality, including responsiveness to social affordances.