Empathy is a lay term that is becoming increasingly viewed as a unitary function within the field of cognitive neuroscience. In this paper, a selective review of the empathy literature is provided. It is argued from this literature that empathy is not a unitary system but rather a loose collection of partially dissociable neurocognitive systems. In particular, three main divisions can be made: cognitive empathy , motor empathy, and emotional empathy. The two main psychiatric disorders associated with empathic dysfunction are (...) considered: autism and psychopathy. It is argued that individuals with autism show difficulties with cognitive and motor empathy but less clear difficulties with respect to emotional empathy. In contrast, individuals with psychopathy show clear difficulties with a specific form of emotional empathy but no indications of impairment with cognitive and motor empathy. (shrink)

Galen of Pergamum was the most influential doctor of later antiquity, whose work was to influence medical theory and practice for more than fifteen hundred years. He was a prolific writer on anatomy, physiology, diagnosis and prognosis, pulse-doctrine, pharmacology, therapeutics, and the theory of medicine; but he also wrote extensively on philosophical topics, making original contributions to logic and the philosophy of science, and outlining a scientific epistemology which married a deep respect for empirical adequacy with a commitment to rigorous (...) rational exposition and demonstration. He was also a vigorous polemicist, deeply involved in the doctrinal disputes among the medical schools of his day. This volume offers an introduction to and overview of Galen's achievement in all these fields, while seeking also to evaluate that achievement in the light of the advances made in Galen scholarship over the past thirty years. (shrink)

It is commonly supposed that the philosophy of education is not a reputable area of concern for a philosopher. I have never heard a coherent, sustained and successful case made for this view. Only vague remarks about ‘autonomy’ and narrowly protectionist views of philosophy are ventured. So I shall not discuss the matter further. I shall simply be content to side with Plato, Aristotle, Comenius, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Mill and Dewey, who thought that educational issues fell within the province of (...) philosophy. Kant was so concerned with education that he interrupted his work on the Critique of Pure Reason in order to support Basedow's experimental school, the Philanthropin, and the educational reforms which it intended to institute. Kant says ‘… the greatest and most difficult problem to which man can devote himself is the problem of education.’ But if those who hold that the philosophy of education is unimportant, or even disreputable, have come to that view after examining a good deal of what is currently being said in this field, then their adverse reaction is not hard to understand, because a good deal of contemporary work here is clearly inadequate. I hope to show that the contemporary perspective is too narrow, and to advocate a return to a more traditional view of the philosophy of education in the hope that the subject may once again be given the importance which was formerly attributed to it. (shrink)

In this book Reynold Macpherson initiates a politically-critical theory of educative leadership as a fresh line of inquiry in the practice, research and theory of educational administration and educational leadership. Divided into four parts, the book introduces the sub-discipline of political philosophy to the field of educational administration, management and leadership. It does this by clarifying the knowledge domain of each and identifying how four political ideologies, specifically pragmatism, communitarianism, communicative rationalism and egalitarian liberalism, have primarily informed and surreptitiously provided (...) contestable justifications for power in the development of practice, research and theory in the field of study. The book goes on to offer three case studies illustrating how political philosophy can be used to interpret how people become leaders and administrators of educational institutions and systems. Additional case studies then demonstrate how crises in governance in educational institutions and systems can be analyzed and improvements made using the tools of political philosophy. The final part uses the sub-discipline to critique the author's decades of research into educative leadership, and concludes the book by both establishing the relativity of politically-critical critique and the ideology it favours; neo-pragmatism. Political Philosophy, Educational Administration and Educative Leadership will provide practitioners, researchers and theorists in educational administration, management and leadership with a deeper appreciation of power by formally introducing them to the assumptions, limits and tools of political philosophy. (shrink)

This is an intelligently designed collection of essays dealing with a variety of key issues that are in the foreground of reflection on the social and behavioral sciences. The format followed is an ideal one: a key paper, a comment by a critic, and a reply. Thus, for example, Charles Taylor explains and defends teleological explanation of behavior and engages in an exchange with Robert Borger; and Noam Chomsky reviews the problems of explanation in linguistics and is challenged by Max (...) Black. The quality of this volume is quite high and the contributors are leaders in their fields of inquiry. Not only are there explorations by philosophers but also by practicing behavioral scientists. This is therefore an excellent way of gaining an overview of some of the key issues concerning explanation in the behavioral sciences. But the volume is disappointing in breaking new ground. Many of the points and counterpoints made here can be found in other places, and frequently they are explored in greater detail in other places. The collection also reflects an Anglo-Saxon bias for there is little attempt to include any confrontations with the continental concern with the nature of explanation in the social sciences. A detailed bibliography might have helped to direct the reader to further discussion of the issues involved. But despite these limitations, this is an impressive series of confrontations.--R. J. B. (shrink)

Professor Hall with this work supplements the earlier bibliography of T. E. Jessop, who has collaborated on some of the entries in the current work. There is an overlap of some ten years, inasmuch as Hall’s work commences with the year 1930; entries run through early 1971. The bibliography is extensive, containing some 800 items in all the various Western languages as well as transliterated Japanese. In addition, attention is directed to critical studies of many of the listings. An eighteen-page (...) subject index contributes further to making this a quite useful and valuable addition to the field of Hume scholarship.—R. J. G. (shrink)

An extensive bibliography of existential literature published in English covering the fields of art, literature, philosophy, psychiatry, and theology.--R. J. B.

This is an intelligently designed collection of essays dealing with a variety of key issues that are in the foreground of reflection on the social and behavioral sciences. The format followed is an ideal one: a key paper, a comment by a critic, and a reply. Thus, for example, Charles Taylor explains and defends teleological explanation of behavior and engages in an exchange with Robert Borger; and Noam Chomsky reviews the problems of explanation in linguistics and is challenged by Max (...) Black. The quality of this volume is quite high and the contributors are leaders in their fields of inquiry. Not only are there explorations by philosophers but also by practicing behavioral scientists. This is therefore an excellent way of gaining an overview of some of the key issues concerning explanation in the behavioral sciences. But the volume is disappointing in breaking new ground. Many of the points and counterpoints made here can be found in other places, and frequently they are explored in greater detail in other places. The collection also reflects an Anglo-Saxon bias for there is little attempt to include any confrontations with the continental concern with the nature of explanation in the social sciences. A detailed bibliography might have helped to direct the reader to further discussion of the issues involved. But despite these limitations, this is an impressive series of confrontations.--R. J. B. (shrink)

"Hermeneutics" is a term that is slowly gaining familiarity in Anglo-Saxon countries. As is so frequently the case with movements in Continental philosophy, it has been the theologians who have first displayed a serious interest in hermeneutics. Both insofar as this study has far reaching ramifications for all disciplines concerned with the nature and art of interpretation, it is relevant to the concerns of the philosopher and the literary critic. Basically, Palmer's aim is to answer the question, "what is hermeneutics?" (...) and to present the reader with the origin and diversity of approaches in recent times. He does this admirably and the book will be helpful to anyone who wants to know what hermeneutics is all about. The book also includes a bibliography of many of the most important contributions relating to the study of hermeneutics. Palmer's own enthusiasm for the field is apparent. When he concludes with thirty theses on interpretation, it begins to look as if hermeneutics is so all-inclusive that it is difficult to see what differentiates it from other approaches to the nature of interpretation.--R. J. B. (shrink)

During the past decade a great deal of excitement and interest has been generated by the work of Noam Chomsky and his followers in linguistics and related fields such as psychology. Typically when there is a breakthrough in a science, there are prophets who follow who make exaggerated claims and counterclaims. But while there has been much talk about generative grammars, depth and surface structure, transformations, etc., there has also been a great deal of ignorance about what these concepts (...) precisely mean. This short book based on three lectures delivered at Berkeley is now perhaps the best introduction to Chomsky's work. It combines and reflects a variety of his interests and is written with a lucidity that marks the ease of a master. The first lecture develops Chomsky's thesis that it is rationalist models of the mind and language that provide a much more fruitful orientation for the study of language and the mind than empiricist models. In this respect he continues his attack on what he takes to be the misguided dogmatic narrowness of prevailing empiricist and behaviorist presuppositions. The second lecture deals explicitly with some of the basic issues and techniques in the "new" linguistics showing us what it does and does not contribute to our understanding of language. The third lecture looks to the future and suggests possible directions that may be taken in psychology, linguistics, and other social sciences in light of the new orientation being developed in linguistics. But the present succinct volume is much more than an introduction to Chomsky's work and the new linguistics. It is also an evaluation of what has and has not been achieved in the past decade of intensive work. It reflects both Chomsky's modesty about what has really been accomplished and his optimism about what probably will be accomplished in the future. There appears to be a striking disparity between some of Chomsky's more exciting and provocative claims about innate capacities, universal grammar, the modified Cartesian-Kantian orientation, and the actual achievements of linguistics and psycholinguistics concerning our understanding of language and mind.--R. J. B. (shrink)

Using a dialogue form, Mac Iver portrays a series of discussions among an intelligent group of specialists. The topics discussed include the nature of life, creation, sex, sensitivity, as well as the responsibility of the modern scholar to confront fundamental problems that extend beyond his limited field of inquiry. Mac Iver does catch the spirit of an informal discussion among specialists, but one wishes that he might have included a philosopher to help order the discussion and to clear up conceptual (...) confusions.--R. J. B. (shrink)

Recently, work in cybernetics, information theory, computers, artificial intelligence, etc. has become of increasing interest to philosophers. This collection of papers delivered to the Philosophic Institute for Artificial Intelligence at Notre Dame surveys some of the main areas of this field and raises a number of important philosophic issues concerning this work. The introduction by the editors and the selected bibliography are extremely helpful for getting acquainted with the variety of approaches and problems that have been in the foreground of (...) discussion. Especially interesting is the attempt in most of the papers to relate recent research to traditional philosophic issues concerning the nature and capacities of man.--R. J. B. (shrink)

Given all the individuals that had a hand in this Festschrift, one might have expected more unity. The collection of essays by colleagues and students honoring Marcuse is divided into three sections, "The Political Concerns of Philosophy," "Art, Literature, and Society," and "Industrial Society and its Plight." There is a fourth section dealing with Marcuse as a teacher and containing a bibliography of his works. There is little unity even within the subdivisions and a great range in the quality of (...) essays. Some of the outstanding essays are M. I. Finley's on utopianism, ancient and modern; Peter Gay's study of Cassirer and the history of ideas; and Leonard Krieger's exploration of history and Sartre. Occasionally the contributors discuss some aspect of Marcuse's thought but little of his critical spirit emerges here, except for the awareness that he has influenced a number of individuals in a great variety of fields.—R. J. B. (shrink)

Understanding terrestrial carbon metabolism is critical because terrestrial ecosystems play a major role in the global carbon cycle. Furthermore, humans have severely disrupted the carbon cycle in ways that will alter the climate system and directly affect terrestrial metabolism. Changes in terrestrial metabolism may well be as important an indicator of global change as the changing temperature signal. Improving our understanding of the carbon cycle at various spatial and temporal scales will require the integration of multiple, complementary and independent methods (...) that are used by different research communities. Tools such as air sampling networks, inverse numerical methods, and satellite data allow us to study the strength and location of the global- and continental-scale carbon sources and sinks. Bottom-up studies provide estimates of carbon fluxes at finer spatial scales and examine the mechanisms that control fluxes at the ecosystem, landscape, and regional scales. Bottom-up approaches include comparative and process studies that provide the necessary mechanistic information to develop and validate terrestrial biospheric models. An iteration and reiteration of top-down and bottom-up approaches will be necessary to help constrain measurements at various scales. We propose a major international effort to coordinate and lead research programs of global scope of the carbon cycle. (shrink)

The present study explores the Bianchi type I universe in the frame work of f theory of gravity by considering strange quark matter attached to string cloud and domain walls in the presence and absence of magnetism. Field equations are solved by choosing a constant curvature method. It is found that obtained cosmological models are relevant to the early era of evolution of the universe. The strange quark matter may be a source of string cloud and domain walls.

The book provides a comprehensive state-of-the-art overview of current research on cognitive and applied aspects of eye movements. The contents include peer-reviewed chapters based on a selection of papers presented at the 11th European Conference on Eye Movements (Turku, Finland 2001), supplemented by invited contributions. The ECEM conference series brings together researchers from various disciplines with an interest to use eye-tracking to study perceptual and higher order cognitive functions. The contents of the book faithfully reflect the scope and diversity of (...) interest in eye-tracking as a fruitful tool both in basic and applied research. It consists of five sections: visual information processing and saccadic eye movements; empirical studies of reading and language production; computational models of eye movements in reading; eye-tracking as a tool to study human-computer interaction; and eye movement applications in media and communication research. Each section is concluded by a commentary chapter by one of the leading authorities in the field. These commentaries discuss and integrate the contributions in the section and provide an expert view on the most significant present and future developments in the respective areas. The book is a reference volume including a large body of new empirical work but also principal theoretical viewpoints of leading research groups in the field. (shrink)

A useful logic in which to specify normative system behaviour, deontic logic has a broad spectrum of possible applications within the field: from legal expert systems to natural language processing, database integrity to electronic contracting and the specification of fault-tolerant software.

In this paper, we discuss the macroscopic quantum behavior of simple superconducting circuits. Starting from a Lagrangian for electromagnetic field with broken gauge symmetry, we construct a quantum circuit model for a superconducting weak link (SQUID) ring, together with the appropriate canonical commutation relations. We demonstrate that this model can be used to describe macroscopic excitations of the superconducting condensate and the localized charge states found in some ultrasmall-capacitance weak-link devices.

Stem cell science is advancing at an unprecedented rate, with thousands of research papers being published every year and many clinical trials for a wide range of conditions underway as registered on ClinicalTrials.gov. This rapidly expanding and alluring field has brought with it ever more complex and multifaceted ethical issues, many of which require new guidelines, consent protocols and even change in legislation, since they do not fit comfortably in the existing bioethical regulations and protocols. Keeping up with the ethical (...) implications of stem cell research is daunting to the expert and non-expert. We review the various types of stem cells and then focus on multipotent and pluripotent cell types, since it is these cell types that bring with them the greatest research and therapeutic potential, while concurrently delivering novel ethical conundrums. Certain key considerations are currently lacking and what is needed is how to obtain permission from individuals who donate their biological material for both scientific inquiry and eventually, for their potential therapeutic utility. (shrink)

Prior research has demonstrated a strong relationship between team performance and team members’ team efficacy beliefs and perceptions of social integration. Performing well increases the feelings of collective ability that comprise team efficacy and the feelings of psychological connectedness that make up social integration, while performing poorly erodes them. In this article, we draw from the social cognitive base of ethical leadership theory to argue that ethical leadership moderates the relationship between team performance and team efficacy beliefs, and between team (...) performance and social integration, such that these important team attitudes are buffered against the negative effects of poor performance when leaders act ethically. Alternatively, when leaders act less ethically, team efficacy and social integration break down following poor performance. We test our hypotheses in a field study of U.S. military teams actively engaged in competition. The data support our arguments. We find that ethical leadership weakens the relationships among team performance and team efficacy and social integration, respectively, such that ethical leaders preserve team efficacy and social integration when their teams do not perform well. (shrink)

Background:Stress can frequently occur in the driving context. Its cognitive effects can be deleterious and lead to uncomfortable or risky situations. While stress detection in this context is well developed, regulation using dedicated advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) is still emergent.Objectives:This systematic review focuses on stress regulation strategies that can be qualified as “subtle” or “mindless”: the technology employed to perform regulation does not interfere with an ongoing task. The review goal is 2-fold: establishing the state of the art on such (...) technological implementation in the driving context and identifying complementary technologies relying on subtle regulation that could be applied in driving.Methods:A systematic review was conducted using search operators previously identified through a concept analysis. The patents and scientific studies selected provide an overview of actual and potential mindless technology implementations. These are then analyzed from a scientific perspective. A classification of results was performed according to the different stages of emotion regulation proposed by the Gross model.Results:A total of 47 publications were retrieved, including 21 patents and 26 studies. Six of the studies investigated mindless stress regulation in the driving context. Patents implemented strategies mostly linked to attentional deployment, while studies tended to investigate response modulation strategies.Conclusions:This review allowed us to identify several ADAS relying on mindless computing technologies to reduce stress and better understand the underlying mechanisms allowing stress reduction. Further studies are necessary to better grasp the effect of mindless technologies on driving safety. However, we have established the feasibility of their implementation as ADAS and proposed directions for future research in this field. (shrink)

A precise fomulation of the strong Equivalence Principle is essential to the understanding of the relationship between gravitation and quantum mechanics. The relevant aspects are reviewed in a context including General Relativity but allowing for the presence of torsion. For the sake of brevity, a concise statement is proposed for the Principle: An ideal observer immersed in a gravitational field can choose a reference frame in which gravitation goes unnoticed. This statement is given a clear mathematical meaning through an accurate (...) discussion of its terms. It holds for ideal observers (time-like smooth non-intersecting curves), but not for real, spatially extended observers. Analogous results hold for gauge fields. The difference between gravitation and the other fundamental interactions comes from their distinct roles in the equation of force. (shrink)

A critical review of gravitational wave theory is made. It is pointed out that the usual linear approach to the gravitational wave theory is neither conceptually consistent nor mathematically justified. Relying upon that analysis it is argued that—analogously to a Yang-Mills propagating field, which must be nonlinear to carry its gauge charge—a gravitational wave must necessarily be nonlinear to transport its own charge—that is, energy-momentum.

Abstract:Lately, the field of business ethics has begun to take an intense interest in the relationship between religion and business ethics. Various books and articles are being produced at an increasing rate using theoretical and qualitative research methods. However, to date, almost no data exist quantifying relationships between religion and business ethics. This paper begins to provide such data by testing the relationships between religious upbringing, religious practice, Christian beliefs, and attitudes toward corporate social responsibility. Analysis of our sample demonstrates (...) that religious practice and Christian beliefs have a weak relationship to attitudes toward corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

Vagueness is epistemic, according to some. Vagueness is ontological, according to others. This article deploys what I take to be a compromise position. Predicates are coined in specific contexts for specific purposes, but these limited practices do not automatically fix the extensions of predicates over the domain of all objects. The linguistic community using the predicate has rarely considered, much less decided, all questions that might arise about the predicate’s extension. To this extent, the ontological view is correct. But a (...) predicate that applies in some contexts can be reasonably extended to other contexts where it is initially vague. This process of development approximates the cognitive remedy for vagueness that the epistemic view prescribes. The process is piecemeal and inductive, akin to what von Wright described as the molding of concepts. Vagueness cannot be understood apart from the backdrop of classification, for vagueness is classification gone awry. Hence these pages explore the classification of particulars, both its clear successes and vague failures. How we classify unique particulars is the theme of Sections 2 and 3, which are primarily descriptive. Section 2 identifies a way of classifying particulars that pervades discourse of all sorts, and Section 3 illustrates its use in a field notorious for vagueness: ethics. Why a certain particular should (or should not) be classified in a certain way is a normative question, however, and it occupies Sections 4 and 5. Section 4 proposes a norm for strong arguments by analogy, and Section 5 illustrates how the norm might resolve vagueness in one kind of ethical dispute. This norm, which has a strong probabilistic component, is one way of affirming that probability is a guide to life. (shrink)