We address the problem of musical variation (identification of different musical sequences as variations) and its implications for mental representations of music. According to reductionist theories, listeners judge the structural importance of musical events while forming mental representations. These judgments may result from the production of reduced memory representations that retain only the musical gist. In a study of improvised music performance, pianists produced variations on melodies. Analyses of the musical events retained across variations provided support for the reductionist account (...) of structural importance. A neural network trained to produce reduced memory representations for the same melodies represented structurally important events more efficiently than others. Agreement among the musicians' improvisations, the network model, and music‐theoretic predictions suggest that perceived constancy across musical variation is a natural result of a reductionist mechanism for producing memory representations. (shrink)

This article addresses a classical question: Can a machine use language meaningfully and if so, how can this be achieved? The first part of the paper is mainly philosophical. Since meaning implies intentionality on the part of the language user, artificial systems which obviously lack intentionality will be `meaningless'. There is, however, no good reason to assume that intentionality is an exclusively biological property and thus a robot with bodily structures, interaction patterns and development similar to those of human beings (...) would constitute a system possibly capable of meaning – a conjecture supported through a Wittgenstein-inspired thought experiment. The second part of the paper focuses on the empirical and constructive questions. Departing from the principle of epigenesis stating that during every state of development new structure arises on the basis of existing structure plus various sorts of interaction, a model of human cognitive and linguistic development is proposed according to which physical, social and linguistic interactions between the individual and the environment have their respective peaks in three consecutive stages of development: episodic, mimetic and symbolic. The transitions between these stages are qualitative, and bear a similarity to the stages in phylogenesis proposed by Donald and Deacon. Following the principle of epigenetic development, robotogenesis could possibly recapitulate ontogenesis, leading to the emergence of intentionality, consciousness and meaning. (shrink)

We find that the nature and origin of the proposed “dialogical cognitive representations” in the target article is not sufficiently clear. Our proposal is that (triadic) bodily mimesis and in particular mimetic schemas – prelinguistic representational, intersubjective structures, emerging through imitation but subsequently interiorized – can provide the necessary link between private sensory-motor experience and public language. In particular, we argue that shared intentionality requires triadic mimesis.

This paper presents an original interpretation of the fourteenth-century debate over whether every volitio is a cognitio. This debate, I argue, was at its heart a debate about what constitutes the mark of occurrent mental states. Three participants in this debate – Adam Wodeham, Richard FitzRalph, and John of Ripa – articulated three distinct accounts of the mark of the mental. In doing so, they also developed several philosophical accounts of the intentionality of occurrent affective states.

Human communication is by defaultpolysemiotic: it involves the spontaneous combination of two or moresemiotic systems, the most important ones beinglanguage,gesture, anddepiction. We formulate an original cognitive-semiotic framework for the analysis of polysemiosis, contrasting this with more familiar systems based on the ambiguous term “multimodality.” To be fully explicit, we developed a coding system for the analysis of polysemiotic utterances containing speech, gesture, and drawing, and implemented this in the ELAN video annotation software. We used this to analyze 23 video-recordings of (...) sand drawing performances on Paama, Vanuatu and 20 sand stories of the Pitjantjatjara culture in Central Australia. Methodologically we used theconceptual-empirical loopof cognitive semiotics: our theoretical framework guided general considerations, such as distinguishing between the “tiers” of gesture and depiction, and the three kinds of semiotic grounds (iconic, indexical, symbolic), but the precise decisions on how to operationalize these were made only after extensive work with the material. We describe the coding system in detail and provide illustrative examples from the Paamese and Pitjantjatjara data, remarking on both similarities and differences in the polysemiosis of the two cultural practices. We conclude by summarizing the contributions of the study and point to some directions for future research. (shrink)

Here I propose to undertake a brief survey of the statements of the argument given by these proponents, formulating and qualifying as I go what seems to me a sound version of it, capable of withstanding both Ayer's criticism and others that I have developed. There must be additional ways in which the same or similar points can be expressed. Another review of Kant, Paton, Taylor, and Kenner would no doubt produce a somewhat different result. All that is claimed here (...) is that the argument advanced in this paper is sound and that it was suggested by certain statements of theirs. (shrink)

As concerns over the negative social and environmental impacts of industrial agriculture become more widespread, efforts to define and regulate sustainable agriculture have proliferated in the US. Whereas the USDA spearheaded previous efforts, today such efforts have largely shifted to Tripartite Standards Regimes (TSRs). Using a case study of the Leonardo Academy’s initiative to develop a US sustainable agriculture standard, this paper examines the standards-development process and efforts by agribusiness to influence the process. Specifically, we analyze how politics operate in (...) seemingly “depoliticized” TSRs, and how agribusiness and the USDA use “framing practices” and procedural complaints to influence the standard-development process. We contend that although governance mechanisms are a potentially powerful tool for advocates of alternative agrifood, their efficacy may be constrained by science-based requirements, an agribusiness countermovement, and a captured state. (shrink)

A leading critic of the disruptive force of technology in education, Bernard Stiegler saw the counter-effects of artificial intelligence in undermining human agency, autonomy and individuality, rendering the role of education ever more critical. Stiegler believes that our goal is not to abandon technology but to focus our attention on its power and direction in a hypercapitalist economy. While he did not foresee the emergence of generative artificial intelligence (GAI), its rapid acceleration raises important issues for his notion of digital (...) writing as a pharmakon. In this essay, we examine Stiegler’s view on intelligence, digital writing, technological memory, and neuropower, focusing specifically on his Shanghai lecture and Nanjing Lectures. We compare Stiegler with Catherine Malabou, who examines the nature of intelligence primarily through the lens of neuroscience. We argue that Malabou’s view of neuroplasticity in human and artificial brains, and her critique of techno-narcissism in the control over technology, add an important dimension to Stiegler’s political critique of education. Finally, we examine how best to construe AI as part of a hyper-materialist epistemology that Stiegler espouses in the conclusion of his Nanjing Lectures, to bring about neganthropic knowledge through a therapeutics of care. (shrink)

I address an argument in value theory which threatens to render nonsensical many debates in modern ethics. Almotahari and Hosein’s :1485–1508, 2015) argument against the property of goodness simpliciter is presented. I criticise the linguistic tests they use in their argument, suggesting they do not provide much support for their conclusion. I draw a weaker conclusion from their argument, and argue that defenders of goodness simpliciter have not responded adequately to this milder conclusion. I go on to argue that moral (...) philosophers ought to abandon the property of goodness simpliciter and focus their attention on the property of being a good state of affairs. I defend this property against Almotahari and Hosein’s criticism, and give reasons to think it is at the heart of moral theory. (shrink)

In a series of important papers, Justin D’Arms and Daniel Jacobson argue that all extant neo-sentimentalists are guilty of a conflation error that they call the moralistic fallacy. One commits the moralistic fallacy when one infers from the fact that it would be morally wrong to experience an affective attitude—e.g., it would be wrong to be amused—that the attitude does not fit its object—e.g., that it is not funny. Such inferences, they argue, conflate the appropriateness conditions of attitudinal responses with (...) the fittingness conditions of the associated evaluative properties. Further, they argue that moral considerations are irrelevant for determining if amusement fits its object. We agree that a strong moralizing of humor is wrongheaded and that jokes can be quite funny even in cases where we have a compelling moral reason to not be amused. However, we argue that pace D’Arms and Jacobson moral considerations can be relevant for property ascription. On our view, in order for a joke to be funny, a properly sensitive agent must take herself to have a contributory reason to be amused, and in some cases that she lacks such a reason is best explained by appeal to moral considerations. We use this constraint as the basis of what we call our modest proposal for a modest sentimentalism. (shrink)

Mindfulness is becoming increasingly popular in the workplace. This likely relates to a growing body of research linking mindfulness to a range of psychological outcomes such as reduced anxiety, depression and increased subjective wellbeing. However, while mindfulness has received a great deal of attention in clinical research, the evidence for workplace relevant benefits is less established. Additionally, outside of clinical research, mindfulness studies have rarely been replicated. Recent evidence suggests that the cognitive skills cultivated during meditation may be instrumental in (...) reducing biased thinking and increasing prosocial behaviour, but these findings have not been previously tested in a workplace setting. Specifically, mindfulness has been linked to reductions in implicit age bias, sunk-cost decision-making bias and increases in organisational citizenship behaviours. In two experiments using a workplace and laboratory sample, the present investigation aimed to test the reliability and generalisability of previous findings that a brief mindfulness meditation can reduce age and sunk-cost decision-making biases. To more directly test the potential positive benefits of mindfulness in a workplace setting, this study also investigated the impact of a mindfulness intervention on intention to perform OCB. While meditation significantly increased OCB intent, predictions relating to bias were not supported. Considerations for the degree to which empirical evidence aligns with claims in popular culture, along with implications for the practical uses of mindfulness in the workplace are explored. (shrink)

In “Genetic Privacy, Disease Prevention, and the Principle of Rescue,” Madison Kilbride argues that patients have a duty to warn biological family members about clinically actionable adverse genetic findings. The duty does not stem from the special obligations that we may have to family members, she argues, but rather follows from the principle of rescue, which she understands as the idea that one ought to prevent, reduce, or mitigate the risk of harm to another person when the expected harm is (...) serious and the cost or risk to oneself is sufficiently moderate. We doubt, however, whether the principle of rescue can ground a duty to warn in the cases Kilbride envisages, and we suggest that Kilbride may have underappreciated the role that special obligations could play in generating a duty to warn family members. (shrink)

We reflect on our experience co-teaching a medical humanities elective, “Pandemics and Plagues,” which was offered to undergraduates during the Spring 2021 semester, and discuss student reactions to studying epidemic disease from multidisciplinary medical humanities perspectives while living through the world Covid-19 pandemic. The course incorporated basic microbiology and epidemiology into discussions of how epidemics from the Black Death to HIV/AIDS have been portrayed in history, literature, art, music, and journalism. Students self-assessed their learning gains and offered their insights using (...) the SALG, describing how the course enhanced their understanding of the current pandemic. In class discussions and written assignments, students paid particular attention to issues of social justice, political context, and connections between past pandemics and Covid-19. Student responses indicate enhanced understanding of the scientific and medical aspects of epidemics and also increased appreciation of the insights to be gained from the medical humanities. We discuss co-teaching the class during a real-time, twenty-four-hour-news-cycle pandemic, and the ways in which that experience underlines the value of a “critical medical humanities” approach for undergraduates. (shrink)

Within John Dewey's pragmatic naturalism, consciousness, meaning, and value were conceptualized as ontologically real phenomena. During the century that has passed since Dewey's time, naturalism has come to be dominated by physicalist and realist perspectives within which the reality of consciousness, meaning, and value are problematic. Given this historical tension in naturalism, the present paper does the following: describes why consciousness, causality, and the body were all at home in Dewey's naturalism, and why Dewey's naturalism fell out of favour during (...) the century that followed, describes a sample of unsuccessful twentieth-century attempts to get consciousness back into naturalism, including the contemporary embodiment movement, presents a recently developed holist, post-naturalist philosophy of embodiment that challenges the physicalist and realist assumptions at work in most contemporary forms of naturalism, and presentsWST as an intra-disciplinary framework for scholarship, and as a potential means of addressing the scholarship-culture tensions that have emerged during the zeitgeist of naturalism. (shrink)

This paper explores the meaning attributed to the national group as an entry point into how boundaries between the in-group and the out-group are formed. To do so, it focuses on the representation of the past of the group, taken as a symbolic resource able to produce a raison d’être for national groups, and does so within a dialogical framework. Using the transcripts of the French parliamentary debates on immigration from 2006, it proposes a qualitative analysis of collective narratives of (...) the past along three axes: 1) what meaning do they give to the nation, 2) how is such a meaning produced, and 3) how do the stories told by different groups reply or relate to one another. By identifying the main narratives found in the data and how they relate to each other – within and between groups – it proposes to see collective memory as itself the product of symbolisation processes and, therefore, as a cultural tool especially powerful to produce meaning about the present. This paper also argues that collective memory is a situated construction negotiated with – or contested by – others, made possible by the presence of common historical benchmarks to which different meanings may however be attributed. Finally, it proposes to understand “immigration talk” as potentially the product of the identity questions faced by the national group, rather than the other way around. (shrink)

Merrill, Booker and Fivush examine the social functions associated with transmitting intergenerational narratives to adolescents and emerging adults and how these family stories affect identity formation in early adulthood. Merrill et al. observed that the intergenerational stories of parents’ transgression and proud moments told by adolescents and emerging adults operate as a way to transmit life lessons, strengthen relationships with the parent and give insights into their parents and their self.

Shaftesbury is one of those philosophers who are usually placed more or less in the margin of the history of thought because an insufficient idea of system and a certain looseness of conception make it difficult to grasp their ideas and to classify them. Yet when you are able to break down or to dismiss the mental figures in which you have been accustomed to consider the historical succession of doctrines and are prepared to revive their words with an open (...) mind, not only do they give you in their originality more than you had hoped, but also they help to render your representation of intellectual life as a whole more complex and more harmonious in its development. Bandini,1an Italian scholar, in making a zealous study of Shaftesbury, has succeeded in drawing out his rich personality, and at the same time in explaining the importance of his contribution to theperennis philosophia. We could hardly succeed in understanding the modern English mind in its genesis if we concentrated our attention exclusively on those empiristic currents which, although they preponderate in Anglo-Saxon speculation, do not contain all its originality. There is a deep fount of romance in the spirit of this people which wells up from time to time, and the drier and harder the surface earth the more strongly it gushes forth. Shaftesbury is just such a fount, isolated and inexplicable to all outward appearances, but far otherwise for anyone who knows how to penetrate below the surface. In his essay Bandini, while emphasizing the contrast between the philosophy of moral enthusiasm and feeling and the contemporaneous doctrines of Hobbes and Locke, examines with equal penetration the way in which the former becomes reattached to English speculative tradition and by what means it contributes in its turn to furnishing new trends in philosophy. (shrink)

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Volume 19, Issue 6, Page 1223-1226, December 2011.

This thought-provoking Research Handbook provides a snapshot of current research on natural law theory in ethics, politics and law, showcasing the breadth and diversity of contemporary natural law thought. The Research Handbook on Natural Law Theory examines topics such as foundational figures in Western natural law theory, natural law ideas in a variety of religious and cultural traditions, normative foundations of natural law, as well as issues of law and governance. Featuring contributions by leading international scholars, this Research Handbook offers (...) a valuable resource for scholars in law, philosophy, religious studies and related fields. (shrink)

"Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. His influence extends beyond academic philosophy to areas as diverse as anti-colonial movements, youth culture, literary criticism, and artistic developments around the world. Beginning with an introduction and biography of Jean-Paul Sartre by Matthew Eshleman, 42 chapters by a team of international contributors cover all the major aspects of Sartre's thought in the following key areas: Sartre's philosophical and historical context Sartre and phenomenology Sartre, existentialism and ontology (...) Sartre and ethics Sartre and political theory Aesthetics, literature and biography Sartre's engagements with other thinkers. The Sartrean Mind is the most comprehensive collection on Sartre published to date. It is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, as well as for those in related disciplines where Sartre's work has continuing importance such as literature, French studies, and politics"--. (shrink)

Growing opioid misuse in the United States has resulted in more children living with an adult with an opioid use history. Although an abundance of research has demonstrated a link between opioid misuse and negative parenting behaviors, few intervention efforts have been made to target this underserved population. The Family Check-Up has been tested in more than 25 years of research, across multiple settings, and is an evidence-based program for reducing risk behavior, enhancing parenting skills, and preventing the onset of (...) substance use. It is designed to motivate parents to engage in positive parenting practices and to change problematic parenting and has been tested across a variety of ages including early childhood and adolescence. It is highlighted in NIDA’s Principles of Substance Use Prevention for Early Childhood: A research-based guide as one of only three effective selective prevention programs for substance abuse among families with young children. Recently, we developed an online version of the FCU that has now been adapted for early childhood and families with opioid use histories. The online platform and telehealth model allow for wide-scale dissemination, ease of training with community providers, and increased public health reach for families in remote, rural areas. This is particularly important when targeting families with opioid misuse and addiction because there are high rates of addiction in remote areas, yet few services available. In this article, we describe the FCU Online and review new content in the model that targets a population of young adult parents with substance abuse histories, including opioid use. New modules include content focused on harm reduction for this high-risk population of parents, such as safety in the home, substance use while parenting, and managing conflict with partners and friends. (shrink)

Entendo a partidarização judicial como agravamento do anti-igualitarismo jurídico que degrada o formalismo democrático. Atenho-me ao Brasil, sem generalizar: há pessoas dignas no judiciário. Falo na aplicação indevida da lei na esfera política para impedir mudanças na sociedade. Trato o tema em três níveis. Preliminarmente, discuto a desigualdade político-jurídica, depois os golpes de Estado, e por fim o manejo da legislação como arma política que mantém injustiças.

Over the course of the last four decades, William Leon McBride has distinguished himself as one of the most esteemed and accomplished philosophers of his generation. This volume—which celebrates the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday—includes contributions from colleagues, friends, and formers students and pays tribute to McBride’s considerable achievements as a teacher, mentor, and scholar.

Most countries compile evidence from witnesses and victims manually, whereby the interviewer assimilates what the interviewee says during the course of an interview to produce an evidential statement. This exploratory research examined the quality of evidential statements generated in real world investigations. Transcribed witness/victim interviews were compared to the resultant written statements produced by the interviewing officer and signed as an accurate record by the interviewee. A coding protocol was devised to assess the consistency of information between what was said (...) by the interviewee in the verbal interview and what was reported in the written statement. Statements contained numerous errors including omissions, distortions, and the inclusion of information not mentioned in the verbal interview. This exploratory work highlights an important area for future research focus. (shrink)

Many journals in the physical sciences require authors to submit assurances of compliance with human subjects and other research ethics standards. These requirements do not cover all disciplines equally, however. In this paper we report on the findings of a survey of perceptions of ethical and managerial problems from journal editors in political science and related disciplines. Our results show that few journals in political science require assurance statements common to journals for other scientific disciplines. We offer some reasons for (...) this as well as some recommendations for implementing ethical assurance safeguards for political science. (shrink)

Foucault’s History of Sexuality 1 cannot be understood without sustained attention to its ironies, which are written into every level from diction to structure. The little book does not intend to deliver a theory, queer or otherwise. It means rather to display and then to frustrate the desire for theory—especially when it comes to sexuality.