Social anxiety disorder has been widely recognised as one of the most commonly diagnosed mental disorders. Individuals with social anxiety disorder experience difficulties during social interactions that are essential in the regular functioning of daily routines; perpetually motivating research into the aetiology, maintenance and treatment methods. Traditionally, social and clinical neuroscience studies incorporated protocols testing one participant at a time. However, it has been recently suggested that such protocols are unable to directly assess social interaction performance, which can be revealed (...) by testing multiple individuals simultaneously. The principle of two-person neuroscience highlights the interpersonal aspect of social interactions that observes behaviour and brain activity from both constituents of the interaction, rather than analysing on an individual level or an individual observation of a social situation. Therefore, two-person neuroscience could be a promising direction for assessment and intervention of the social anxiety disorder. In this paper, we propose a novel paradigm which integrates two-person neuroscience in a neurofeedback protocol. Neurofeedback and interbrain synchrony, a branch of two-person neuroscience, are discussed in their own capacities for their relationship with social anxiety disorder and relevance to the paradigm. The newly proposed paradigm sets out to assess the social interaction performance using interbrain synchrony between interacting individuals, and to employ a multi-user neurofeedback protocol for intervention of the social anxiety. (shrink)

Creating android and humanoid robots to furnish companionship in the nursing care of older people continues to attract substantial development capital and research. Some people object, though, that machines of this kind furnish human–robot interaction characterized by inauthentic relationships. In particular, robotic and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have been charged with substituting mindless mimicry of human behaviour for the real presence of conscious caring offered by human nurses. When thus viewed as deceptive, the robots also have prompted corresponding concerns regarding (...) their potential psychological, moral, and spiritual implications for people who will be interacting socially with these machines. The foregoing objections and concerns can be assessed quite differently, depending upon ambient religious beliefs or metaphysical presuppositions. The complaints may be set aside as unnecessary, for example, within religious traditions for which even current robots can be viewed as presenting spiritual aspects. Elsewhere, technological cultures may reject the complaints as expression of outdated superstition, holding that the machines eventually will enjoy a consciousness described entirely in materialist and behaviourist terms. While recognizing such assessments, the authors of this essay propose that the heart of the foregoing objections and concerns may be evaluated, in part, scientifically – albeit with a conclusion recommending fundamental revisions in AI modelling of human mental life. Specifically, considerations now favour introduction of AI models using interactive classical and quantum computation. Without this change, the answer to the essay's title question arguably is ‘no’ – with it, the answer plausibly becomes ‘maybe’. Either outcome holds very interesting implications for nurses. (shrink)

Alongside concerns for animal welfare, concerns for land, water, and climate are undermining established food identities in many parts of the world. In Aotearoa New Zealand, agrifood relations are bound tightly into national identities and the materialities of export dependence on dairying and agriculture more widely. Dairy/ing identities have been central to national development projects and the politics that underpin them for much of New Zealand’s history. They are central to an intransigent agrifood political ontology. For the last decade, however, (...) they have been challenged by the identity politics of ethical food consumption. This paper explores the ensuing contests and asks how they are reshaping agrifood identities. We draw on interviews with 15 participants in Aotearoa New Zealand who have made dietary transitions that reduce or exclude dairy products. Our aim is not to identify a new post-dairying identity or claim a reconfigured national identity, but to examine the collision of production-consumption values in the context of a dominant place-based food identity. We ask how participants navigate contradictory commitments to becoming ‘good environmental citizens’ whilst remaining ‘good national citizens’. The paper offers insights for examining similar struggles elsewhere and the potential to shift agrifood relations and undermine entrenched political ontologies through ethical food consumption values. (shrink)

This volume considers the many areas where medicine intersects with the law. Advances in medical research, reproductive science and genetics have given rise to unprecedented ethical and legal quandaries. These are reflected in chapters on cloning, organ donation, choosing genetic characteristics, and the use of Viagra.

While the Philosophy for Children method has been adopted within classrooms by individual teachers and into some school systems by schoolboards, public and school libraries, the ideal users of this sort of programming, have been slow to recognise the benefits of this didactic methodology. This is particularly surprising given that the P4C method integrates perfectly with traditional story-time orientated programming. Not only is the integration of P4C into story-time sessions virtually seamless, but it might also help reinvigorate a well-established feature (...) of library programming with an aim to develop 21st-century information literacy competencies. This paper examines the case for the P4C method, explains the process of integration of the P4C method with traditional story-time, and highlights the potential benefits of incorporating Philosophy for Children in public and school library programming. (shrink)

Resumo: A técnica é a ação de um agente Intencional, com uma determinada finalidade, sobre específicas propriedades físicas, ação que constitui um objeto técnico. O reconhecimento desta Intencionalidade da ação dos autores da técnica é necessário para o processo de compreensão desses objetos pelos receptores, principalmente para a compreensão dos objetos técnicos caracterizados também como suportes semióticos. A minha hipótese é que essa Intencionalidade pode vir “mascarada” pela própria ação técnica constituinte da forma do objeto, e também pelo discurso institucional, (...) dificultando a compreensão desses objetos pelo público. Trata-se também de esclarecer quais as propriedades que são realmente ontológicas nos objetos técnicos.: A technique is an action of an Intentional agent, with a determined purpose, upon specific physical properties. This action constitutes a technical object. Identifying the Intentionality of authors' actions is necessary for the comprehension of these objects by receivers, particularly for the comprehension of technical objects which are also characterized as semiotic supports. My hypothesis is that this Intentionality can be “disguised” by the technical action itself, particularly in questions of form, and also by institutional discourse, which problematizes the comprehension of these same objects by the public. It will be a matter as well of clarifying the ontological properties of technical objects. (shrink)

Objectives: The objective of this post hoc exploratory analysis was to examine the relationship between age and measures of cortical excitability and inhibition. Methods: Forty-six participants (24 with major depressive disorder and 22 healthy controls) completed MT, SICI, ICF, and CSP testing in a cross-sectional protocol. Of these 46 participants, 33 completed LICI testing. Multiple linear robust regression and Spearman partial correlation coefficient were used to examine the relationship between age and the TMS measures. Results: In the overall sample of (...) 46 participants, age had a significant negative relationship with motor threshold in both the right (rs = -0.49, adjusted p =.007; β= -0.08, adjusted p=.001) and left (rs = -0.42, adjusted p =.029; β= -0.05, adjusted p=.004) hemispheres. This significant negative relationship of age with motor threshold was also observed in the sample of depressed youth in both the right (rs = -0.70, adjusted p =.002; β= -0.09, adjusted p=.001) and left (rs = -0.54, adjusted p =.034; β= -0.05, adjusted p=.017) hemispheres, but not in healthy controls. In the sample of the 33 participants who completed LICI testing, age had a significant negative relationship with LICI (200 millisecond interval) in both the right (rs = -0.48, adjusted p =.05; β= -0.24, adjusted p=.007) and left (rs = -0.64, adjusted p =.002; β= -0.23, adjusted p=.001) hemispheres. This negative relationship between age and LICI (200 millisecond interval) was also observed in depressed youth in both the right (rs = -0.76, adjusted p =.034; β= -0.35, adjusted p=.004) and left (rs = -0.92, adjusted p =.002; β= -0.25, adjusted p=.001) hemispheres. Conclusion: These findings suggest that younger children have higher motor thresholds. This is more pronounced in depressed youth than healthy controls. LICI inhibition may also increase with age in youth. (shrink)

Mood has varied effects on cognitive performance including the accuracy of face recognition . Three experiments are presented here that explored face recognition abilities in mood-induced participants. Experiment 1 demonstrated that happy-induced participants are less accurate and have a more conservative response bias than sad-induced participants in a face recognition task. Using a remember/know/guess procedure, Experiment 2 showed that sad-induced participants had more conscious recollections of faces than happy-induced participants. Additionally, sad-induced participants could recognise all faces accurately, whereas, happy- and (...) neutral-induced participants recognised happy faces more accurately than sad faces. In Experiment 3, these effects were not observed when participants intentionally learnt the faces, rather than incidentally learnt the faces. It is suggested that happy-induced participants do not process faces as elaborately as sad-induced participants. (shrink)

Clarke A. Chambers interviews Marcia Eaton, professor in the Department of Philosophy.

We show that if there is a nonconstructible real, then every perfect set has a nonconstructible element, answering a question of K. Prikry. This is a specific instance of a more general theorem giving a sufficient condition on a pair $M\subset N$ of models of set theory implying that every perfect set in N has an element in N which is not in M.

The Sacks Density Theorem [7] states that the Turing degrees of the recursively enumerable sets are dense. We show that the Density Theorem holds in every model of P - + BΣ 2 . The proof has two components: a lemma that in any model of P - + BΣ 2 , if B is recursively enumerable and incomplete then IΣ 1 holds relative to B and an adaptation of Shore's [9] blocking technique in α-recursion theory to models of arithmetic.

Theorem. There is a non-empty Π10 class of reals, each of which computes a real of minimal degree. Corollary. WKL “there is a minimal Turing degree”. This answers a question of H. Friedman and S. Simpson.

How do we use our mental images of the present to reconstruct our past? Maurice Halbwachs addressed this question for the first time in his work on collective memory, which established him as a major figure in the history of sociology. This volume, the first comprehensive English-language translation of Halbwach's writings on the social construction of memory, fills a major gap in the literature on the sociology of knowledge. Halbwachs' primary thesis is that human memory can only function within a (...) collective context. Collective memory, Halbwachs asserts, is always selective; various groups of people have different collective memories, which in turn give rise to different modes of behavior. Halbwachs shows, for example, how pilgrims to the Holy Land over the centuries evoked very different images of the events of Jesus' life; how wealthy old families in France have a memory of the past that diverges sharply from that of the nouveaux riches; and how working class construction of reality differ from those of their middle-class counterparts. With a detailed introduction by Lewis A. Coser, this translation will be an indispensable source for new research in historical sociology and cultural memory. Lewis A. Coser is Distinguished Professor of Sociology Emeritus at the State University of New York and Adjunct Professor of Sociology at Boston College. (shrink)

Pharmaceutical companies routinely engage physicians, particularly those with prestigious academic credentials, to deliver “educational” talks to groups of physicians in the community to help market the company's brand-name drugs.Although presented as educational, and even though they provide educational content, these events are intended to influence decisions about drug selection in ways that are not based on the suitability and effectiveness of the product, but on the prestige and persuasiveness of the speaker. A number of state legislatures and most academic medical (...) centers have attempted to restrict physician participation in pharmaceutical marketing activities, though most restrictions are not absolute and have proven difficult to enforce. This article reviews the literature on why Speakers' Bureaus have become a lightning rod for academic/industry conflicts of interest and examines the arguments of those who defend physician participation. It considers whether the restrictions on Speakers' Bureaus are consistent with principles of academic freedom and concludes with the legal and institutional efforts to manage industry speaking. (shrink)

Pharmaceutical companies routinely engage physicians, particularly those with prestigious academic credentials, to deliver educational talks to groups of physicians in the community to help market the company's brand-name drugs. These speakers receive substantial compensation to lecture at events sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, a practice that has garnered attention, controversy, and scrutiny in recent years from legislators, professional associations, researchers, and ethicists on the issue of whether it is appropriate for academic physicians to serve in a promotional role. These relationships have (...) become so contentious that three years ago the pharmaceutical industry trade association, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, adopted voluntary guidelines stating that drug companies should stop giving doctors free pens, calendars, sports bags, or tickets to entertainment events. Further, numerous medical associations, such as the Association of American Medical Colleges, the American Board of Internal Medicine and the Institute on Medicine as a Profession, and government bodies such as the Institute of Medicine have recommended that medical schools and teaching hospitals prohibit or strongly discourage faculty from participating in so-called industry Speakers Bureaus — promotional events designed solely to market pharmaceutical products. (shrink)

The topic of homonymy, especially the variety of homonymy that has gone under the title, “focal meaning,” is of fundamental importance to large portions of Aristotle’s work—not to mention its central place in the ongoing controversies between Aristotle and Plato. It is quite astonishing, therefore, that the topic should have gone so long without a book-length treatment. And it is all the more gratifying that the new book on homonymy by Christopher Shields should be so comprehensive, and of such uniformly (...) high quality. Everyone who cares about Aristotle will be in his debt. (shrink)

“I would prefer not”HERMAN MELVILLE, BARTLEBY THE SCRIVENER: A STORY OF WALL STREET (1853), reprinted in THE PIAZZA TALES 32, 48 (London, Sampson Low, Son & Co. 1856). Scholars have recently challenged the claim in classical deterrence theory that law influences behavior only through the expected sanction imposed. Some go further and argue that law may also “shape preferences,” changing people’s wants and values. In this Article, we analyze existing claims that criminal and civil law alter preferences and conclude that (...) none suggest that the law shapes preferences. We first clarify this preference-shaping claim by elaborating the structure of rational choice theory generally and “preference” in particular. We then investigate three mechanisms of legal influence suggested by the preference-shaping literature: (1) the “serious harm” mechanism; (2) the “social norm” mechanism; and (3) the “self-improvement” mechanism. We then show that each of these mechanisms operates by changing the agent’s beliefs about the attributes or consequences of her choice options rather than by changing her preferences. (shrink)

The question of what makes someone the same person through time and change has long been a preoccupation of philosophers. In recent years, the question of what makes ordinary or lay people judge that someone is—or isn’t—the same person has caught the interest of experimental psychologists. These latter, empirically oriented researchers have sought to understand the cognitive processes and eliciting factors that shape ordinary people’s judgments about personal identity and the self. Still more recently, practitioners within an emerging discipline, experimental (...) philosophical bioethics or “bioxphi”—the focus of this chapter—have adopted a similar aim and employed similar methodologies, but with two distinctive features: (a) a special concern for enhanced ecological validity in the examples and populations studied; and (b) an interest in contributing to substantive normative debates within the wider field of bioethics. Our aim in this chapter is to sample illustrative work on personal identity in bioxphi, explore how it relates to studies in psychology covering similar terrain, and draw out the implications of this work for matters of bioethical concern. In pursuing these issues, we highlight recent work in bioxphi that includes the perceived validity of advance directives following neurodegeneration, the right of psychologically altered study participants to withdraw from research, how drug addiction may cause one to be regarded by others as “a completely different person,” the effect of deep-brain stimulation on perceptions of the self, and the potential influence of moral enhancement interventions on intuitive impressions of a person’s character. (shrink)

Building on influential work in virtue ethics, this collection of essays examines the categories of self, person, and anthropology as foci for comparative analysis. The papers unite reflections on theory and method with descriptive work that addresses thinkers from the modern West, Christian and Jewish Late Antiquity, early China, and other settings. The introduction sets out central methodological issues that are subsequently taken up in each essay, including the origin of the categories through which comparison proceeds, the status of these (...) categories in the process of comparison, and the goals of comparison. In considering the question of goals, the introduction draws connections between comparative study and historical study within one tradition. Both types of analysis can bridge the gap between historical and normative work by attending to the ways in which the questions a scholar asks - not just the answers found - vary from one context to another. (shrink)

v. 1. Books I and II -- v. 2. Books III, IV, and V -- v. 3. Books VI and VII -- v. 4. Books VIII and IX.