A leading figure in neuroaesthetics makes the case that aesthetic experience can be meaningfully measured by the tools of neuroscience.

In many ways, Benedict (Baruch) de Spinoza appears to be a contradictory figure in the history of philosophy. From the beginning, he has been notorious as an "atheist" who seeks to substitute Nature for a personal deity; yet he was also, in Novalis's famous description, "the God-intoxicated man." He was an uncompromising necessitarian and causal determinist; yet his ethical ideal was to become a "free man." He maintained that the human mind and the human body are identical; yet he also (...) insisted that the human mind can achieve a kind of eternality that transcends the death of the body. He has been adopted by Marxists as a precursor of historical materialism, and by Hegelians as a precursor of absolute idealism. He was a psychological egoist, proclaiming that all individuals necessarily seek their own advantage and implying that other individuals were of value to him only insofar as they were useful to him; yet his writings aimed to promote human community based on love and friendship, he had many devoted friends, and even his critics were obliged to acknowledge that his personal conduct was above reproach. He held that the state has the right to do whatever it has the power to do, while at the same time he defended democracy and freedom of speech. He denied supernatural revelation and criticized popular religion as a grave danger to the peace and stability of the state; yet he devoted himself to the careful interpretation of scripture and argued for toleration and freedom of religion. Rarely employing figures of speech or rhetorical flourishes of any kind, his works are nevertheless among the most magisterial and uplifting of all philosophical writings, and they have inspired more poets and novelists than those of any other philosopher of the early modern period. (shrink)

Max Weber's distinction in "Politics as a Vocation" between the ethic of conviction and the ethic of responsibility is best understood as a distinction between mutually exclusive ethical worldviews. Interpretations that correlate the two ethics with Weber's distinction between value-rational social action and instrumental-rational social action are misleading since Weber assumes that both types of rational social action are present in both ethics. The ethic of conviction recognizes a given hierarchy of values as the context for moral endeavor. The ethic (...) of responsibility acknowledges value obligations, but assumes the absence of any given hierarchy of values and the inevitability of value conflict as the context for moral endeavor. When interpreted in the context of his multilayered understanding of value conflict, Weber's ethic of responsibility emerges as a coherent ethical perspective. (shrink)

Introduction: situating Heidegger and the philosophy of technology -- Heidegger's philosophy of technology -- The historical-ontological priority of technology over science -- Deromanticizing Heidegger -- Interlude: the earth inherited -- Was Heidegger prescient concerning technoscience? -- Heidegger's technologies: one size fits all -- Concluding postphenomenological postscript: writing technologies.

Original essays by leading philosophers of science explore the question of whether metaphysics can and should be naturalized--conducted as part of natural science.

The study of social norms sprawls across all of the social sciences but the the concept lacks a unified conception and formal theory. We synthesize an account that can be applied generally, at the social scale of analysis, and can be applied to empirical evidence generated in field and lab experiments. More specifically, we provide new analysis on representing norms for application in empirical political science, and in parts of economics that do not follow the recent trend among some behavioral (...) economists to build models of the cognitive and motivational states of individuals taken “one at a time”. Foundational sources for our project are Bicchieri (2006, 2017), Kuran (1995), and Stirling (2012, 2016). From Bicchieri take that a norm exists in a social structure when a significant networked subset of individuals share descriptive and injunctive expectations that it regulates their interactions. From Kuran we take the insight that prevailing norms may come to be widely disliked by participants in networks but survive because norm suppress public displays of disenchantment. From Stirling we apply conditional game theory (CGT) to provide the technical resources for building our model of a norm-regulated social interaction. The example we use is a multi-player Investment/Trust Game. (shrink)

A groundbreaking approach to martial arts combining Self-Image Psychology and Qigong. Martial arts teacher Phillip Starr draws on more than sixty years of experience to introduce the Mirror Image Technique--a method that recognizes the reinforcing nature of body and mind. Our self-image expresses in how we stand, move, and hold ourselves in the world; and in martial arts, the way we move reflects the way we think on the mat, in practice, and when sparring. Here, Starr pulls from (...) Self-Image Psychology and Qigong to offer readers a unique set of physical exercises that can be applied to any martial art tradition--as well as our personal lives. Like two mirrors facing each other, the physical body both reflects and changes the mind, and vice versa: our physical movements become more than just the consequence of our intentions or thoughts. As we adjust the way we move, we adjust the way we think: about ourselves, our lives, and our environments. Unlike other self-help books that consider the mind as the sole gateway to change, the Mirror Image Technique shows that cognitive transformation starts with the body. Starr takes readers through: Demonstrating key principles of Qigong with exercises like The Unbreakable Arm and The Unliftable Body Improving your stance Increasing your strike force Insights into the mindset for breaking boards (tameshiwari). Intended to enhance growth and personal development, the techniques in Martial Arts and the Mirror Image lead to a renewal of confidence and enthusiasm for one’s particular practice. (shrink)

A groundbreaking approach to martial arts combining Self-Image Psychology and Qigong. Martial arts teacher Phillip Starr draws on more than sixty years of experience to introduce the Mirror Image Technique--a method that recognizes the reinforcing nature of body and mind. Our self-image expresses in how we stand, move, and hold ourselves in the world; and in martial arts, the way we move reflects the way we think on the mat, in practice, and when sparring. Here, Starr pulls from (...) Self-Image Psychology and Qigong to offer readers a unique set of physical exercises that can be applied to any martial art tradition--as well as our personal lives. Like two mirrors facing each other, the physical body both reflects and changes the mind, and vice versa: our physical movements become more than just the consequence of our intentions or thoughts. As we adjust the way we move, we adjust the way we think: about ourselves, our lives, and our environments. Unlike other self-help books that consider the mind as the sole gateway to change, the Mirror Image Technique shows that cognitive transformation starts with the body. Starr takes readers through: • Demonstrating key principles of Qigong with exercises like The Unbreakable Arm and The Unliftable Body • Improving your stance • Increasing your strike force • Insights into the mindset for breaking boards (tameshiwari). Intended to enhance growth and personal development, the techniques in Martial Arts and the Mirror Image lead to a renewal of confidence and enthusiasm for one’s particular practice. (shrink)

This paper aims to address the difficulties of high school students in bridging their computational understanding with their visualization skills in understanding the notion of the limits in their calculus class. This research used a pre-experimental one-group pretest-posttest design research on 62 grade 10 students enrolled in the Science, Technology, and Engineering Program (STEP) in one of the public high schools in Zamboanga del Sur, Philippines. A series of remedial sessions were given to help them understand the function values, one-sided (...) limits, limits of a function, and its discontinuities with the aid of the GeoGebra. Results revealed that there is a significant improvement in their mathematics performance before and after the remediation, t(61) = -19.99, p<.05. The real-time feedback provided by the drawing interface of GeoGebra has provided the students the insights into how objects behave in geometrical space, bridging their understanding in locating the values shown by the computational algebraic processes. Additionally, the significant difference in the achievement reveals a large effect size (Cohen’s =2.54) which could be accounted for by the remediation using interactive activities in the GeoGebra. (shrink)

Joann Starr, a Roman Catholic nun, and Bruce Zawacki, a burn surgeon, met 22 years ago in the Los Angeles County, University of Southern California Burn Center in the roles of a patient and her physician struggling over issues of autonomy and informed consent. After recovery, she remained a nun and has become a patient advocate and doctoral candidate in bioethics. He remained a burn surgeon and has become a bioethics teacher and author. Although they live in distant locations, (...) they maintain their friendship and frequently discuss their shared experience. Recently they met to reflect on the events, lessons, and meanings of their original encounter. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to advance a new understanding of gender as a routine accomplishment embedded in everyday interaction. To do so entails a critical assessment of existing perspectives on sex and gender and the introduction of important distinctions among sex, sex category, and gender. We argue that recognition of the analytical independence of these concepts is essential for understanding the interactional work involved in being a gendered person in society. The thrust of our remarks is toward theoretical (...) reconceptualization, but we consider fruitful directions for empirical research that are indicated by our formulation. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Stability of Truth: A Discussion of Reality as Related to Thought and Action The generalizations and principles of science, the significance of scientific facts, the consequences of recognizing and adopting in our daily life the knowledge of science: these are the subjects of this series of books, to be called the Philosophy of Nature Series. The science which will be most in evidence in these books is the science of living things, biology. And it is the application (...) of the scientific knowledge of living things in general to the conduct of human life in particular which will be the subject most conspicuous in the list of titles of the books of the series. This first book, then, a robust treatment of science in life, by a robust exponent of the life scientific, should be a most excellent introduction to the Series. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Paul Churchland does not open his latest book,The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul, modestly. He begins by announcing, “This book is about you. And me … More broadly still, it is about every creature that ever swam, or walked, or flew over the face of the Earth” (p. 3). A few sentences later, he says, “Fortunately, recent research into neural networks … has produced the beginnings of a real understanding of how the biological brain works—a real understanding, (...) that is, of howyouwork, and everyone else like you” (p. 3). The implicit identification here of “me and you and everyone” with “the biological brain” might lead an uncharitable reader to view Churchland's book as “Eliminativism for the non-specialist,” that is, as an attempt to popularize the view of the mindbody problem with which, among his professional peers, Churchland has long been identified. However, I think that such a readingwouldbe uncharitable. He is, of course, frequently sceptical about the utility of folk psychology, but in this book he is much less concerned to disparage folk psychology as a failedtheory(by contrast with, for example, the arguments in Churchland 1979) than to urge the more modest view that the more we understand the brain, the better we shall be at helping those whose brains are damaged in ways that interfere seriously with the fulfilment of their lives. Hence, I am inclined to take him at his word when he says in the Preface that “The book is motivated first of all by sheer excitement over the new picture that is now emerging … [and] … also by the idea that this is information that the public needs to know” (p. xi). What excites Churchland so, at least overtly, is not the negative thesis he has defended elsewhere that folk-psychological terms fail to refer; his enthusiasm is mainly reserved for the positive thesis that minds are, essentially, interacting assemblies of recurrent neural networks. It is therefore this positive thesis, and Churchland's defence of it, that I will assess in the following discussion. (shrink)

Utterances of natural language sentences can be used to communicate not just contents, but also forces. This paper examines this topic from a cross-linguistic perspective on sentential mood. Recent work in this area focuses on conversational dynamics: the three sentence types can be associated with distinctive kinds of conversational effects called sentential forces, modeled as three kinds of updates to the discourse context. This paper has two main goals. First, it provides two arguments, on empirical and methodological grounds, for treating (...) sentential force as part of a compositional dynamic semantics, rather than a dynamic pragmatics. Second, it formulates a minimal dynamic semantic analysis that covers the data at the heart of these arguments, incorporating existing analyses of the three major moods, evidentials and conjunction. A further aim of the paper is to sharpen the distinction between sentential force and utterance force, and discuss its implications. (shrink)

Imperative sentences like Dance! do not seem to represent the world. Recent modal analyses challenge this idea, but its intuitive and historical appeal remain strong. This paper presents three new challenges for a non-representational analysis, showing that the obstacles facing it are even steeper than previously appreciated. I will argue that the only way for the non-representationalist to meet these three challenges is to adopt a dynamic semantics. Such a dynamic semantics is proposed here: imperatives introduce preferences between alternatives. This (...) characterization of meaning focuses on what function a sentence serves in discourse, rather than what that sentence refers to (e.g., a state of the world). By representing the meaning of imperatives, connectives and declaratives in a common dynamic format, the challenges posed for non-representationalism are met. (shrink)

Expanded new edition of the landmark book demonstrating the practice of phenomenology through visual illusions and ambiguous drawings.

A photographer and a geographer explore where the pavement ends. Nevada's enigmatic Black Rock country, despite its apparent silence and isolation, is actually an area where natural forces are ceaselessly restless and life in many forms has endured for millennia. Its haunting landscape has been the focus of study and contemplation by scientists, explorers, outdoors aficionados, and artists. In ""Black Rock,"" photographer Peter Goin and geographer Paul F. Starrs explore this fascinating place from the viewpoints of their respective disciplines. The (...) Black Rock, a desert realm almost the size of Delaware but scarcely a hundred miles north of Reno, embraces mile-high vertical mountains and one of the earth's flattest, most barren salt pans, boiling hot springs and freezing winter cold, plants that have evolved to survive the severest drought and lush pockets of rich grasses. Its bewildering environments startle our senses with a raw physical intensity that comes through in Goin's eloquent photographs and Starrs's richly informed text. We observe the region from numerous perspectives - the Black Rock at ground level, from the skies above, in the geology below; witness the shaping roles of water, wind, and geothermal action in shaping it; and view the effects of human hands, from ancient Native Americans to nineteenth-century explorers, ranchers, and miners, up through the congregants at today's Burning Man festivals. The result is a brilliant duet of visual and literary commentary on a region of stunning paradoxes and constant change and activity, where need and curiosity encounter the daunting, implacable forces of nature. (shrink)

Not so long ago, being reasonably trustworthy was good enough. But soon only the extremely trustworthy will thrive. In the age of smartphones and social networks, every action an organization takes can be exposed and critiqued in real time. Nothing is local or secret anymore. If you treat one customer unfairly, produce one shoddy product, or try to gouge one price, the whole world may find out in hours, if not minutes. The users of Twitter, Yelp, and similar outlets show (...) little mercy for bad behavior. The bar for trustworthiness is higher than ever and continues to rise. Bestselling authors Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D., argue that the only sane response to these rising levels of transparency is to protect the interests of customers proactively—even if that requires spending extra money in the short run to preserve your brand reputation in the long run. The payoff of generating extreme trust will be worth it. With a wealth of fascinating research as well as practical applications, this book will show you how to earn—and keep—the extreme trust of everyone your company interacts with. (shrink)

A uniform theory of conditionals is one which compositionally captures the behavior of both indicative and subjunctive conditionals without positing ambiguities. This paper raises new problems for the closest thing to a uniform analysis in the literature (Stalnaker, Philosophia, 5, 269–286 (1975)) and develops a new theory which solves them. I also show that this new analysis provides an improved treatment of three phenomena (the import-export equivalence, reverse Sobel-sequences and disjunctive antecedents). While these results concern central issues in the study (...) of conditionals, broader themes in the philosophy of language and formal semantics are also engaged here. This new analysis exploits a dynamic conception of meaning where the meaning of a symbol is its potential to change an agent’s mental state (or the state of a conversation) rather than being the symbol’s content (e.g. the proposition it expresses). The analysis of conditionals is also built on the idea that the contrast between subjunctive and indicative conditionals parallels a contrast between revising and consistently extending some body of information. (shrink)

This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.

Jordan's book is an inspiring and uplifting exploration of the power of hope. Drawing on philosophy, science, and literature, Jordan argues that hope is a fundamental human need that can sustain us during life's darkest moments. This book is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and a call to embrace hope as a guiding principle in our lives. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization (...) as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Intuitively, rape is seriously morally wrong in a way simple assault is not. Yet philosophical disputes about the features of rape that make it the heinous act it is invite a general account of the difference between (mere) wrong-making characteristics and heinous-making characteristics. In this paper I propose just such an account and use it to refute some accounts of the wrongness of rape and refine others. Given these analyses, I close by developing and defending an account of a particularly (...) important heinous-making characteristic of rape. (shrink)

Hume describes “mental geography” as the endeavor to know “the different operations of the mind, to separate them from each other, to class them under their proper heads, and to correct all that seeming disorder, in which they lie involved, when made the object of reflection and enquiry.” While much has been written about his geography of thought in Treatise Book 1, relatively little has been written about his geography of feeling in Books 2 and 3, with the result that (...) there has been considerable puzzlement and disagreement about the meaning and grounds of many of his central theses about the passions, action, and morals. My endeavor in this chapter is to remove some common sources of perplexity about his classification of the operations of feeling “under their proper heads” in that work. I begin by explaining his three highest-level distinctions bearing on this terrain: that between impressions and ideas; that between original impressions and secondary impressions; and that between the passions and the other emotions. In order to understand this third distinction, I explain his three different senses of the term ‘emotion’ and the relations among them. I ill then examine five different kinds of secondary impressions that he recognizes. These are: (1) sensible agitations; (2) feelings of or from mental operations; (3) volitions; (4) the passions (including motives); and (5) sentiments of taste. The broad outlines of the resulting geography are mapped out in a chart at the end. (shrink)

Guala notes that low-cost punishment is the main mechanism that deters free-riding in small human communities. This mechanism is complemented by unusual human vulnerability to gossip. Defenders of an evolutionary discontinuity supporting human sociality might seize on this as an alternative to enjoyment of moralistic aggression as a special adaptation. However, the more basic adaptation of language likely suffices.

This collection explores the subject of conflicts of interest. It investigates how to manage conflicts of interest, how they can affect well-meaning professionals, and how they can limit the effectiveness of corporate boards, undermine professional ethics, and corrupt expert opinion. Legal and policy responses are considered, some of which (e.g., disclosure) are shown to backfire and even fail. The results offer a sobering prognosis for professional ethics and for anyone who relies on professionals who have conflicts of interest. The contributors (...) are leading authorities on the subject in the fields of law, medicine, management, public policy, and psychology. The nuances of the problems posedby conflicts of interest will be highlighted for readers in an effort to demonstrate the manyways that structuring incentives can affect decision making and organizations' financial well-being. (shrink)

Don Handelman's groundbreaking work in anthropology is showcased in this collection of his most powerful essays, edited by Matan Shapiro and Jackie Feldman. The book looks at the intellectual and spiritual roots of Handelman's initiation into anthropology; his work on ritual and on "bureaucratic logic"; analyses of cosmology; and innovative essays on Anthropology and Deleuzian thinking. Handelman reconsiders his theory of the forming of form and how this relates to a new theory of the dynamics of time. This will be (...) the definitive collection of articles by one of the most important anthropologists of the late 20th Century. (shrink)

This book presents the current thinking of some of the most famous people in the intellectual world. Two opening essays by Lewis Mumford and Robert Theobald dis­cuss the role of technology in history, man and technology, and technological possi­bilities for the future. Other contributors include such well-known figures as Max Lerner, Edgar Z. Friedenberg, Seymour Melman, Seymour Martin Lipset, and Ash­ley Montagu. Essays center around key is­sues in the study of technology, its rela­tionship to authority or leadership elites, its potential (...) impact on forms of social organization, its effect in producing counter-culture alternatives and its relationship to humanism. (shrink)

Domestic violence is endemic across Latin America. It is legitimated by patriarchal Christian theologies and widespread gender inequality. Drawing on the work of women theologians and activists working in Argentina, Uruguay and elsewhere, this article explores women's networks of resistance against violence. These include public and legal acknowledgement of domestic violence; the transmission of life-affirming values; pastoral support in the denouncement of violence; and the development of open and fluid household structures.

Abstract In this paper, I argue that the traditional philosophical approach of taking cognitively and emotionally competent adult people to be the prototypical instances of agency should be revised in light of current work in the behavioral sciences. Logical consistency in application is better served by taking simple goal-directed and feedback-governed systems such as insects as the prototypes of the concept of agency, with people being agents ?by extension? in the same sense as countries or corporations.

It is widely believed that Hume often wrote carelessly and contradicted himself, and that no unified, sound philosophy emerges from his writings. Don Garrett demonstrates that such criticisms of Hume are without basis. Offering fresh and trenchant solutions to longstanding problems in Hume studies, Garrett's penetrating analysis also makes clear the continuing relevance of Hume's philosophy.

Ethics in the Last Days of Humanity is not about the science of global warming so much as the absence of a serious ethical and religious response to it. When all existing 'reality' breaks down, ethics can no longer be based on nature or religious law. Cupitt advocates for an alternative inspired by the historical Jesus.

This paper proposes a semantics for free choice permission that explains both the non-classical behavior of modals and disjunction in sentences used to grant permission, and their classical behavior under negation. It also explains why permissions can expire when new information comes in and why free choice arises even when modals scope under disjunction. On the proposed approach, deontic modals update preference orderings, and connectives operate on these updates rather than propositions. The success of this approach stems from its capacity (...) to capture the difference between expressing the preferences that give rise to permissions and conveying propositions about those preferences. (shrink)

Beginning with an overview of Hume's life and work, Don Garrett introduces in clear and accessible style the central aspects of Hume's thought. These include Hume's lifelong exploration of the human mind; his theories of inductive inference and causation; skepticism and personal identity; moral and political philosophy; aesthetics; and philosophy of religion. The final chapter considers the influence and legacy of Hume's thought today. Throughout, Garrett draws on and explains many of Hume's central works, including his Treatise of Human Nature (...) , Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding , and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion . Hume is essential reading not only for students of philosophy, but anyone in the humanities and social sciences and beyond seeking an introduction to Hume's thought. (shrink)

The Stranger, the Alien and the Foreigner are not individuals or groups - they are conclusions and classifications, motives and explanations created through a belief in the power and borders of division. This book seeks meaning and understanding for those that define their existence to a relationship with an identity that doesn't include them.

The authors argue that an urgent leadership issue has arisen which is strongly, but not favorably, influencing our professional culture--a hostility toward religion and its correct expressions within the military. Setting aside the role of Chaplains as a separate issue, the focus here is on the role religion may play in the moral character of individual soldiers--especially leaders--and how their personal morality, faith-based or not, is to be integrated with their profession's ethic so they can serve in all cases "without (...) reservation" as their oath requires. Related products: Expeditionary Culture Field Guide: Latvia can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01225-3 Expeditionary Culture Field Guide: Turkey can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01223-7 Expeditionary Culture Field Guide: Lithuania is available here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01224-5 Expeditionary Culture Field Guide: Chad is available here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01226-1 Aspects of Leadership: Ethics, Law and Spirituality is available here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-055-00255-9 Faith and Hope in a War-Torn Land: The US Army Chaplaincy in the Balkans, 1995-2005 eBook available from Google Play eBookstore. Please use ISBN: 9780160872792 to search their platform for this product; Paperback format available here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00440-2. (shrink)