Working memory limits are best defined in terms of the complexity of the relations that can be processed in parallel. Complexity is defined as the number of related dimensions or sources of variation. A unary relation has one argument and one source of variation; its argument can be instantiated in only one way at a time. A binary relation has two arguments, two sources of variation, and two instantiations, and so on. Dimensionality is related to the number of chunks, because (...) both attributes on dimensions and chunks are independent units of information of arbitrary size. Studies of working memory limits suggest that there is a soft limit corresponding to the parallel processing of one quaternary relation. More complex concepts are processed by or In segmentation, tasks are broken into components that do not exceed processing capacity and can be processed serially. In conceptual chunking, representations are to reduce their dimensionality and hence their processing load, but at the cost of making some relational information inaccessible. Neural net models of relational representations show that relations with more arguments have a higher computational cost that coincides with experimental findings on higher processing loads in humans. Relational complexity is related to processing load in reasoning and sentence comprehension and can distinguish between the capacities of higher species. The complexity of relations processed by children increases with age. Implications for neural net models and theories of cognition and cognitive development are discussed. (shrink)

The core issue of our target article concerns how relational complexity should be assessed. We propose that assessments must be based on actual cognitive processes used in performing each step of a task. Complexity comparisons are important for the orderly interpretation of research findings. The links between relational complexity theory and several other formulations, as well as its implications for neural functioning, connectionist models, the roles of knowledge, and individual and developmental differences, are considered.

Cowan's review shows that a short-term memory limit of four items is consistent with a wide range of phenomena in the field. However, he does not explain that limit, whereas an existing theory does offer an explanation for capacity limitations. Furthermore, processing capacity limits cannot be reduced to storage limits as Cowan claims.

We propose that the missing link from nonhuman to human cognition lies with our ability to form, modify, and re-form dynamic bindings between internal representations of world-states. This capacity goes beyond dynamic feature binding in perception and involves a new conception of working memory. We propose two tests for structured knowledge that might alleviate the impasse in empirical research in nonhuman animal cognition.

Stanley Fish opens the collection with a persuasive argument for the role of intention and biography. Michael McKeon, Gordon Turnbull, and Jerome Christensen are concerned with the late eighteenth--and early nineteenth-century English cultural discourse that gave rise to the nearly simultaneous emergence of literary biography, Romantic sensibility, and reflexive human consciousness. The essays by Alison Booth, Cheryl Walker, and Sharon O'Brien reveal that the recognition or lack thereof the biographical subject has received and remains both a problem and an opportunity (...) for women writers and readers. The essays by Valerie Ross, Rob Wilson, Steven Weiland, and William Epstein pursue the question of difference and cultural reification in the theory and practice of a specifically American biography and biographical criticism. (shrink)

Thomas Jefferson and Philosophy: Essays on the Philosophical Cast of Jefferson’s Writings is a collection of essays on topics that relate to philosophical aspects of Jefferson’s thinking over the years. Much historical insight is given to ground the various philosophical strands in Jefferson’s thought and writing on topics such as political philosophy, moral philosophy, slavery, republicanism, wall of separation, liberty, educational philosophy, and architecture.

Neuroscience, brain based learning and education -- Collaborative reports in neuroscience and education -- A local paradigmatic example, founded on an international research phenomenon -- The mereological fallacy -- First-person/third-person asymmetry -- Neuroscience and irreducible uncertainty -- Inner and outer : the epistemology of the mind -- Inner and outer : the challenges of crypto-cartesianism, materialism and reductionism -- Intrinsic and relational models of education -- Education, psychology and physics -- Bohr's philosophy of physics and its application to psychology and (...) education -- A new educational philosophy based on Bohr's interpretation of quantum physics -- Conclusions : wittgenstein-bohr model of education. (shrink)

Although the commentary on Aristotle’s problematic discussion of slavery is vast, his discussion of nobility receives little attention. The fragments of his dialogue On Noble Birth constitute his most extensive examination of nobility, and while their similarity to the παμβασιλεύς of the Politics has recently been recognized, their relevance to natural slavery has hitherto gone unnoticed. Yet by declaring that true nobles – particularly the god-like ἀρχηγός – preternaturally possess superhuman characteristics, Aristotle precludes their easy inclusion in the kind “human” (...) in a manner inversely mirroring the preternatural subhumanity of natural slaves. Building on recent scholarship which argues that Aristotle’s “defense” of natural slaves is better understood as an indictment, On Noble Birth becomes most coherent if read as a hypothetical investigation into what would be required for “nobility” to name something true rather than equivocal, with the conclusion that “true nobility” is an empty set. (shrink)

InWord and Object W. V. Quine argues that there is no uniquely correct way to assign referents to the terms of a language; any claim about the reference of a term is implicitly relative to a manual of translation. To Rudolf Carnap this must have seemed familiar. BeforeWord and Object was written Carnap had been saying the same thing inMeaning and Necessity: under the assumption of the method of the name-relation, any claim about the reference of a term is implicitly (...) relative to what Carnap calls a conception of the name-relation. Yet Carnap is often taken to be a victim of Quine's relativistic notion of reference. Drawing on Carnap's discussion of the name-relation inMeaning and Necessity, it is argued that Carnap's and Quine's views on reference are not so far apart as is usually perceived. (shrink)

Interrogating received knowledge is constitutive to any critical project, and recently there has been a wave of scholarship which argues for locating the origin of racist-thinking prior to modern Europe—even prior to the Common Era—without any real consideration of the potential dangers accompanying such a seismic redefinition. By expanding “racism” to include potentially any pre-modern xenophobic or ethnicist atrocity, even well-meaning scholarship dilutes the peculiar injustice of modern Europe’s most successful epistemological weapon. As a result, we lose any criteria to (...) distinguish ubiquitous oppressive projects from specifically racist-projects of hegemony and domination. However laudable its intent, such scholarship falls prey to methodological, epistemological, and practical errors that hamstring the ameliorative impact of contemporary anti-racist work while ironically diminishing racism’s impact. For if every conflict is racist, then contemporary colorblindness is correct: if white supremacy isn’t particularly white, then racism is a distinction without a difference. (shrink)

BUSINESS ETHICS, 9th Edition is a comprehensive and practical guide that will help you with real life ethical issues that rise in the business world. It will assist you through the process of developing the critical thinking and analytical skills needed to successfully navigate the unique set of problems that emerge when ethics and commerce collide. This book focuses on key ethical concepts and emphasizes the real world importance of critical topics such as the nature of morality, major theories of (...) ethics and economic justice, and competing views of capitalism and corporate responsibility. It is thorough, flexible, and designed to bolster student involvement with the material for better comprehension and understanding. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version. (shrink)

Neuroscience, brain based learning and education -- Collaborative reports in neuroscience and education -- A local paradigmatic example, founded on an international research phenomenon -- The mereological fallacy -- First-person/third-person asymmetry -- Neuroscience and irreducible uncertainty -- Inner and outer : the epistemology of the mind -- Inner and outer : the challenges of crypto-cartesianism, materialism and reductionism -- Intrinsic and relational models of education -- Education, psychology and physics -- Bohr's philosophy of physics and its application to psychology and (...) education -- A new educational philosophy based on Bohr's interpretation of quantum physics -- Conclusions : wittgenstein-bohr model of education. (shrink)

Preventing War and Promoting Peace: A Guide for Health Professionals is an interdisciplinary study of how pervasive militarism creates a propensity for war through the influence of academia, economic policy, the defense industry, and the news media. Comprising contributions by academics and practitioners from the fields of public health, medicine, nursing, law, sociology, psychology, political science, and peace and conflict studies, as well as representatives from organizations active in war prevention, the book emphasizes the underlying preventable causes of war, particularly (...) militarism, and focuses on the methods health professionals can use to prevent war. Preventing War and Promoting Peace provides hard-hitting facts about the devastating health effects of war and a broad perspective on war and health, presenting a new paradigm for the proactive engagement of health professions in the prevention of war and the promotion of peace. (shrink)

Edward O. Wilson’s recent decision to abandon kin selection theory has sent shockwaves throughout the biological sciences. Over the past two years, more than a hundred biologists have signed letters protesting his reversal. Making sense of Wilson’s decision and the controversy it has spawned requires familiarity with the historical record. This entails not only examining the conditions under which kin selection theory first emerged, but also the organicist tradition against which it rebelled. In similar fashion, one must not (...) only examine Wilson’s long career, but also those thinkers who influenced him most, especially his intellectual grandfather, William Morton Wheeler (1865–1937). Wilson belongs to a long line of organicists, biologists whose research highlighted integration and coordination, many of whom struggled over the exact same biological riddles that have long defined Wilson’s career. Drawing inspiration (and sometimes ideas) from these intellectual forebears, Wilson is confident that he has finally identified the origin of the social impulse. (shrink)

The scientific point of view has gained dominance in our growing world culture by basing its authenticity on an empirical foundation. Yet mystics can point to a different test of authenticity: the broad agreement in subtle perceptions of reality across many cultures and stretches of history. We benefit from the knowledge of the universe and the fascinating intricacies of nature, and we benefit from knowledge of meaning and purpose in the greater life of the cosmos and its implications for meaning (...) in our own lives. An understanding and appreciation of the inner life of the universe can offer an integration of the scientific story of the outer life with the insight of mystics into the inner story, distinguishing the realms appropriate for science and spirituality to explore, and offering hope that they can coexist in mutual respect and harmony, and that each could enrich the other. (shrink)

Neurobiologist William Calvin explores the human brain, positing that the neurons in the brain operate in an accelerated version of biological evolution, evolving ideas through random variations and selections, and supports his hypothesis with numerous ca.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Matter and Spirit in the Age of Animal MagnetismEric G. WilsonDuring the Romantic period, writers on both sides of the Atlantic explored the sleepwalker as a merger of holiness and horror. Emerging when scientific thinkers for the first time were connecting spirit to electricity and magnetism, the somnambulist became to certain Romantics a disclosure of the difficulty of harmonizing unseen and seen, agency and necessity. This problem prominently arose (...) in Anton Mesmer's late eighteenth-century experiments in animal magnetism, in which the sleepwalker proved a paradox: an opaque revelation of transparent currents and an unconscious vehicle of sophisticated thought. Romantics such as Coleridge embraced the somnambulist as an embodiment of these troubles involved in relating motion and meaning. Coleridge and those who responded to him saw in the hypnotized human this sobering possibility: the invisible requires the visible to make itself manifest while the visible needs the invisible to become significant. 1 This is sublime and sinister: to elevate a material form to spiritual power is transcendence; to sink the boundless into a body is grotesque.Here I explore the philosophical implications of animal magnetism, the place of the sleepwalker in the history of ideas, and the role of the hypnotized human in Romantic writers, especially Coleridge. I also meditate on relationships between matter and spirit, machine and human, word and thing. Along the way, I place the history of ideas and the works of Romantic writers in mutually illuminating dialogues. The literary texts shed fresh light on philosophical problems while the ideas reveal hidden literary elements.The somnambulistic trance had been around long before Mesmer's magnetic sleeps. For centuries, shamans had used auto-hypnosis to sound [End Page 329] their souls and other-hypnosis to cure their tribe-members' ailments. However, somnambulism could not become a scientific phenomenon until Europeans in laboratories began to study electricity and magnetism. In the early modern period, Paracelsus argued that a vital fluid courses through the cosmos. The human being draws this flow like a magnet attracts force. When the body pulls to itself evil effluvia, it falls ill. To return patients to health, Paracelsus placed magnets on painful areas. He hoped to extract the unwanted current and return it to the cosmic swirl. 2 In "magnetizing" spirit, Paracelsus opened a door for empirical inquiry into the invisible world. In 1600, William Gilbert claimed that magnets correspond to the earth: both are animated by universal attraction and repulsion. 3 By the end of the seventeenth-century, Newton proposed that things are impelled by a force that draws and repels. Newton's theory of gravity inspired natural philosophers of the next centuries to search for a principle of which the magnet and the spark are manifestations. 4During the second half of the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth, natural philosophers explored electricity and magnetism with unprecedented precision. In 1752, Benjamin Franklin revealed the mystery of lightning and perhaps the spark of life. 5 Inspired by Franklin, F. C. Oetinger, J. L. Fricker, and Prokop Divisch developed a theology of electricity, based on the belief that God is the electrical current. 6 Later in the century, Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta debated over whether the galvanic flow might be the origin and principle of life itself. 7 A few years before Franklin harvested lightning, John Michell argued that the magnetic force is not constrained to lodestones but is possibly pervasive. Some years later, Franz Aepinus suggested that magnetism and electricity manifest a deep energy. Soon after, C. A. de Coulomb discovered the mathematical law by which electrical and magnetic forces operate (Whittaker, pp. 50–59).These findings led to the breakthroughs of the nineteenth century. 8 In 1807, Humphry Davy hypothesized that chemical elements interact through electromagnetic affinity or repulsion. 9 In 1820, H. C. Oersted demonstrated the correspondence between electricity and magnetism. The same year, A. M. Ampere formulated the laws by which electrical and magnetic currents interact (Whittaker, pp. 81–86). Michael Faraday in 1831 revealed electromagnetic induction and thus inaugurated a second Copernican revolution: he showed that matter is not solid and discrete but a field of electromagnetic energy. 10 The dreams of [End... (shrink)

Combining engaging discussions and stimulating new case studies, BUSINESS ETHICS: A TEXTBOOK WITH CASES gives students a comprehensive survey of business ethics that will guide them toward becoming ethical professionals, even if they have never studied philosophy before. Rich with real-world examples, BUSINESS ETHICS: A TEXTBOOK WITH CASES invites students to critically analyze and apply a broad range of philosophical concepts and principles to today's most important issues in business and beyond. BUSINESS ETHICS: A TEXTBOOK WITH CASES is a concise (...) (without readings) and updated version of the eleventh edition of MORAL ISSUES IN BUSINESS. BUSINESS ETHICS: A TEXTBOOK WITH CASES is also available in an eBook format. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version. (shrink)

"[This] book guides readers in thinking deeply about important moral issues that frequently arise in business situations and helps them develop the reasoning and analytical skills to resolve those issues. Combining insightful and accessible textbook chapters by the authors, cases that highlight the real-world importance of key ethical concepts, and reading selections from the most influential voices in contemporary ethical debates, this book provides a comprehensive, flexible, and pedagogically proven course of study exploring the intersections of commerce and ethics."--Book cover.

The concept of scientific history / Isaiah Berlin -- The limits of scientific history / W.H. Walsh -- The objectivity of history / J.A. Passmore -- Explanation in science and in history / C.G. Hempel -- The Popper-Hempel theory reconsidered / Alan Donagan -- The autonomy of historical understanding / Louis O. Mink -- Historical continuity and causal analysis / Michael Oakeshott -- Causal judgment in history and in the law / H.L.A. Hart and A.M. Honoré -- Causes, connections and (...) conditions in history / Michael Scriven -- The historical individual / A.C. Danto -- Methodological individualisms : definition and reduction / May Brodbeck -- Societal laws / Maurice Mandelbaum -- Determinism in history / Ernest Nagel. (shrink)

Aimed at undergraduates, _Contemporary Ethics_ presupposes little or no familiarity with ethics and is written in a clear and engaging style. It provides students with a sympathetic but critical guide to utilitarianism, explaining its different forms and exploring the debates it has spawned. The book leads students through a number of current issues in contemporary ethics that are connected to controversies over and within utilitarianism. At the same time, it uses utilitarianism to introduce students to ethics as a subject. In (...) these ways, the book is not only a guide to utilitarianism, but also an introduction to some standard problems of ethics and to several important topics in contemporary ethical theory. (shrink)

This update of the original version focuses on six central problems in the critical philosophy of history and explores the connections among them. Starting with the fundamentals of each philosophical topic in history and then delving into the specifics of each to better understand the surrounding issues, the reference first offers a comprehensive introduction into these topics then covers explanation and understanding ... objectivity and value judgment .. causes in history ... the nature and role of narrative ... and historical (...) determinism. Suitable for students, professors, and anyone else interested in the philosophy of history. (shrink)

The past few decades of moral psychology research have yielded empirical anomalies for rationalist theories of moral judgments. An increasing number of psychologists and philosophers argue that these anomalies are explained well by sentimentalism, the thesis that the presence of an emotion is necessary for the formation of a sincere moral judgment. The present review reveals that while emotions and moral judgments indeed often co-occur, there is scant evidence that emotions directly cause or constitute moral judgments. Research on disgust, anger, (...) sympathy, and guilt indicates that people only reliably experience emotions when judging conduct that is relevant to the welfare of the self and valued others. Moreover, many recent studies have either failed to replicate or exposed crucial confounds in the most cited evidence in support of sentimentalism. Moral psychologists should jettison sentimentalism, and focus instead on how considerations of harm and welfare—the core concepts of rationalist theories— interact with empirical beliefs to shape moral judgments. (shrink)