We suggest that pain processing has a modular architecture. We begin by motivating the (widely assumed but seldom defended) conjecture that pain processing comprises inferential mechanisms. We then note that pain exhibits a characteristic form of judgement independence. On the assumption that pain processing is inferential, we argue that its judgement independence is indicative of modular (encapsulated) mechanisms. Indeed, we go further, suggesting that it renders the modularity of pain mechanisms a default hypothesis to be embraced pending convincing counterevidence. Finally, (...) we consider what a modular pain architecture might look like, and question alleged counterevidence to our proposal. (shrink)

It is a common criticism of presentism – the view according to which only the present exists – that it errs against truthmaker theory. Recent attempts to resolve the truthmaker objection against presentism proceed by restricting truthmaker maximalism (the view that all truths have truthmakers), maintaining that propositions concerning the past are not made true by anything, but are true nonetheless. Support for this view is typically garnered from the case for negative existential propositions, which some philosophers contend are exceptions (...) to truthmaker maximalism. In this article, we argue that a ‘no truthmakers’ approach to the truthmaker objection is critically flawed. (shrink)

This paper addresses Foucauldian theory and its usefulness to nursing research. It is written in the form of a discussion between the authors on the merits and liabilities of Foucauldian theory as applied to analyses of nursing. As such, it focuses upon some of the more pertinent critiques of both Foucauldian and postmodern theory. By addressing Foucault from two different positions, the discussion seeks to demonstrate the complexity of Foucauldian theory and warns against oversimplification in its application to nursing research. (...) The authors also argue for an awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of any given theoretical stance. (shrink)

New nursing researchers are faced with a smorgasbord of competing methodologies. Sometimes, they are encouraged to adopt the research paradigms beloved of their senior colleagues. This is a problem if those paradigms are no longer of contemporary methodological relevance. The aim of this paper was to provide clarity about current research paradigms. It seeks to interrogate the continuing viability of positivism as a guiding paradigm for nursing research. It does this by critically analysing the methodological literature. Five major paradigms are (...) addressed: the positivist; the interpretivist/constructivist; the transformative; the realist; and the postpositivist. Acceptance of interpretivist, transformative or realist approaches necessarily entails wholesale rejection of positivism, while acceptance of postpositivism involves its partial rejection. Postpositivism has superseded positivism as the guiding paradigm of the scientific method. The incorporation in randomized controlled trials of postpositivist assumptions indicates that even on the methodological territory that it once claimed as its own, positivism has been rendered redundant as an appropriate paradigm for contemporary nursing research. (shrink)

What are phenomenal qualities, the qualities of conscious experiences? Are phenomenal qualities subjective, belonging to inner mental episodes of some kind, or should they be seen as objective, belonging in some way to the physical things in the world around us? Are they physical properties at all? And to what extent do experiences represent the things around us, or the states of our own bodies? Fourteen original papers, written by a team of distinguished philosophers and psychologists, explore the ways in (...) which phenomenal qualities fit in with our understanding of mind and reality. This volume offers an indispensable resource for anyone wishing to understand the nature of conscious experience. (shrink)

We examined two potential correlates of hypnotic suggestibility: dissociation and cognitive inhibition. Dissociation is the foundation of two of the major theories of hypnosis and other theories commonly postulate that hypnotic responding is a result of attentional abilities . Participants were administered the Waterloo-Stanford Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form C. Under the guise of an unrelated study, 180 of these participants also completed: a version of the Dissociative Experiences Scale that is normally distributed in non-clinical populations; a latent inhibition (...) task, a spatial negative priming task, and a memory task designed to measure negative priming. The data ruled out even moderate correlations between hypnotic suggestibility and all the measures of dissociation and cognitive inhibition overall, though they also indicated gender differences. The results are a challenge for existing theories of hypnosis. (shrink)

Coffee and tea are two beverages commonly-consumed around the world. Therefore, there is much research regarding their physiological effects. However, less is known about their psychological meanings. Derived from a predicted lay association between coffee and arousal, we posit that exposure to coffee-related cues should increase arousal, even in the absence of actual ingestion, relative to exposure to tea-related cues. We further suggest that higher arousal levels should facilitate a concrete level of mental construal as conceptualized by Construal Level Theory. (...) In four experiments, we find that coffee cues prompted participants to see temporal distances as shorter and to think in more concrete, precise terms. Both subjective and physiological arousal explain the effects. We situate our work in the literature that connects food and beverage to cognition or decision-making. We also discuss the applied relevance of our results as coffee and tea are among the most prevalent beverages globally. (shrink)

This article examines the intersection of biopolitics with diplomacy and engages its dynamic re-envisioning as biodiplomacy. It revisits Michel Foucault’s peripheral attention to diplomacy and his framing of the concept in his writings on raison d’état and the government of the living. The article suggests that biodiplomacy can help us understand better the complexity of global biopolitical projects, moving us beyond governmentality and sensitizing us about the continuous negotiation of the meaning and materiality of particular ways of living vis-à-vis other (...) ways of being. Specifically, the article addresses modes of existence peculiar to the postcolony or encompassing antithetical value systems and argues that biodiplomacy opens up a wider field of ethical and cosmopolitical possibilities by making visible the interconnected plurality of human and non-human forces. (shrink)

Summary This article seeks to address the question how the Tetrarchic system of four rulers could be presented as legitimate in a society that had never seen this political constellation before. What were the different modes of presenting Tetrarchic rule and how did they help in making the new system acceptable? The article argues that new power structures needed to be formulated in familiar terms, not only for the rulers to legitimate their position, but also for the ruled to understand (...) such new systems. As a result, imperial messages during the Tetrarchic period were strongly influenced by traditional modes of representation from earlier periods. Traditions which were inherent in specific media and locations were determining factors for the way in which a new political system could be presented. The result was a much less coherent ideological Tetrarchic message than is often assumed. The image of group identity was regularly lost in a more complex and messy mode of formulating power. The new and innovative aspects of a collegiate rule by four emperors was less important than linking the power of those rulers to what was traditionally expected of the portrayal of Roman emperorship. (shrink)

The uncountability of$\mathbb {R}$is one of its most basic properties, known far outside of mathematics. Cantor’s 1874 proof of the uncountability of$\mathbb {R}$even appears in the very first paper on set theory, i.e., a historical milestone. In this paper, we study the uncountability of${\mathbb R}$in Kohlenbach’shigher-orderReverse Mathematics (RM for short), in the guise of the following principle:$$\begin{align*}\mathit{for \ a \ countable \ set } \ A\subset \mathbb{R}, \mathit{\ there \ exists } \ y\in \mathbb{R}\setminus A. \end{align*}$$An important conceptual observation is (...) that the usual definition of countable set—based on injections or bijections to${\mathbb N}$—does not seem suitable for the RM-study of mainstream mathematics; we also propose a suitable (equivalent over strong systems) alternative definition of countable set, namelyunion over${\mathbb N}$of finite sets; the latter is known from the literature and closer to how countable sets occur ‘in the wild’. We identify a considerable number of theorems that are equivalent to the centred theorem based on our alternative definition. Perhaps surprisingly, our equivalent theorems involve most basic properties of the Riemann integral, regulated or bounded variation functions, Blumberg’s theorem, and Volterra’s early work circa 1881. Our equivalences are alsorobust, promoting the uncountability of${\mathbb R}$to the status of ‘big’ system in RM. (shrink)

Think of a number, any number, or properties like fragility and humanity. These and other abstract entities are radically different from concrete entities like electrons and elbows. While concrete entities are located in space and time, have causes and effects, and are known through empirical means, abstract entities like meanings and possibilities are remarkably different. They seem to be immutable and imperceptible and to exist "outside" of space and time. This book provides a comprehensive critical assessment of the problems raised (...) by abstract entities and the debates about existence, truth, and knowledge that surround them. It sets out the key issues that inform the metaphysical disagreement between platonists who accept abstract entities and nominalists who deny abstract entities exist. Beginning with the essentials of the platonist–nominalist debate, it explores the key arguments and issues informing the contemporary debate over abstract reality: arguments for platonism and their connections to semantics, science, and metaphysical explanation the abstract–concrete distinction and views about the nature of abstract reality epistemological puzzles surrounding our knowledge of mathematical entities and other abstract entities. arguments for nominalism premised upon concerns about paradox, parsimony, infinite regresses, underdetermination, and causal isolation nominalist options that seek to dispense with abstract entities. Including chapter summaries, annotated further reading, and a glossary, _Entities_ is essential reading for anyone seeking a clear and authoritative introduction to the problems raised by abstract entities. (shrink)

Bestselling author Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith-that a moral system cannot be based on science.

Presents an analogue of the Preface Paradox for intention, and discusses possible implications for the philosophy of action.

Some critics argue that the types of psychiatric diagnosis found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and International Classification of Disease are superfluous and should be abandoned. These are known as categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses. To receive a categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnosis an individual need only exhibit some, rather than all, of the symptoms on the diagnostic criteria. Consequently, categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses only associate an individual with a range of symptoms rather than specify which symptoms they (...) have. Drawing on Giere’s account of scientific models, I portray categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses as abstract models that guide the building of less abstract models. These models can specify which symptoms a particular individual has. Additionally, categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses can guide investigation of symptoms towards difficult to spot symptoms, guide investigation towards changing symptoms, and guide investigation towards how symptoms manifest. These important roles mean categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses should not be abandoned. (shrink)

In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that free will is an illusion but that this truth should not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom; indeed, this truth can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.

Current models of auditory verbal hallucinations tend to focus on the mechanisms underlying their occurrence, but often fail to address the content of the auditory experience. In other words, they tend to ask why there are AVHs at all, instead of asking why, given that there are AVHs, they have the properties that they have. One such property, which has been largely overlooked and which we will focus on here, is why the voices are often experienced as coming from agents, (...) and often specific, individualised agents. In this article, we argue not only that the representation of agents is important in accurately describing many cases of AVH, but also that deeper reflection on what is involved in the representation of agents has potentially vital consequences for our aetiological understanding of AVH, namely, for understanding how and why AVHs come about. (shrink)

Inductive reasoning is fundamental to human cognition, yet it remains unclear how we develop this ability and what might influence our inductive choices. We created novel categories in which crucial factors such as domain and category structure were manipulated orthogonally. We trained 403 4–9-year-old children to categorise well-matched natural kind and artefact stimuli with either featural or relational category structure, followed by induction tasks. This wide age range allowed for the first full exploration of the developmental trajectory of inductive reasoning (...) in both domains. We found a gradual transition from perceptual to categorical induction with age. This pattern was stable across domains, but interestingly, children showed a category bias one year later for relational categories. We hypothesise that the ability to use category information in inductive reasoning develops gradually, but is delayed when children need to process and apply more complex category structures. (shrink)

Predictive processing accounts of neural function view the brain as a kind of prediction machine that forms models of its environment in order to anticipate the upcoming stream of sensory stimulation. These models are then continuously updated in light of incoming error signals. Predictive processing has offered a powerful new perspective on cognition, action, and perception. In this chapter we apply the insights from predictive processing to the study of emotions. The upshot is a picture of emotion as inseparable from (...) perception and cognition, and a key feature of the embodied mind. (shrink)

Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith--that a moral system cannot be based on science.

Sam Gillespie's The Mathematics of Novelty presents a new account of Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze, identifying conceptual impasses in their philosophical ...

Offers a conception of love and why it is meaningful.

As central as the method of forcing is within set theory, it has yet to be incorporated into the philosopher's toolbox. That strikes me as a shame, since it may well have important applications within philosophy. One barrier is that typical presentations of forcing are overly dry and technical and make it seem inherently bound up with its applications within set theory. The purpose of this note is to try to rectify this. In particular, I will explain how the method (...) of forcing can be seen as a way of constructing a certain kind of intensional model that philosophers are already interested in: namely, possibility models. (shrink)

This article provides a non-technical overview of the conflict between the special theory of relativity and the dynamic theories of time. The chief argument against dynamic theories of time from relativistic mechanics is presented. The space of current responses to that argument is subsequently mapped.

Since Aristotle, many writers have treated metaphors and similes as equals: any metaphor can be paraphrased as a simile, and vice-versa. This property of metaphors is the basis for psycholinguistic comparison theories of metaphor comprehension. However, if metaphors cannot always be paraphrased as similes, then comparison theories must be abandoned. The different forms of a metaphor—the comparison and categorical forms—have different referents. In comparison form, the metaphor vehicle refers to the literal concept, e.g. 'in my lawyer is like a shark', (...) the term 'shark' refers to the literal fish. In categorical form, 'my lawyer is a shark', 'shark' refers to an abstract (metaphorical) category of predatory creatures. This difference in reference makes it possible for a metaphor and its corresponding simile to differ (a) in interpretability and (b) in meaning. Because a metaphor cannot always be understood in terms of its corresponding simile, we conclude that comparison theories of metaphor are fundamentally flawed. (shrink)

This paper critically analyses realist evaluation, focussing on its primary analytical concepts: mechanisms, contexts, and outcomes. Noting that nursing investigators have had difficulty in operationalizing the concepts of mechanism and context, it is argued that their confusion is at least partially the result of ambiguities, inconsistencies, and contradictions in the realist evaluation model. Problematic issues include the adoption of empiricist and idealist positions, oscillation between determinism and voluntarism, subsumption of agency under structure, and categorical confusion between context and mechanism. In (...) relation to outcomes, it is argued that realist evaluation's adoption of the fact/value distinction prevents it from taking into account the concerns of those affected by interventions. The aim of the paper is to use these immanent critiques of realist evaluation to construct an internally consistent realist approach to evaluation that is more amenable to being operationalized by nursing researchers. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to introduce an original and radical phenomenology of life into Heidegger’s earliest lectures at Freiburg University. The motivation behind this aim lies in the exclusion of life from the existential analytic despite Heidegger’s preoccupation with the question of life during this very early period. Principally, the essay demonstrates how Husserl’s phenomenological insight into the intentionality of life has the potential to be transformed into a living aporia. Although this demonstration is set within the general (...) context of obtaining knowledge in and of life, it is achieved via a reciprocal critique of the possibility of a philosophy of life and Husserlian phenomenology to reveal the congruence life philosophy has with the project of phenomenology. In contrast to fundamental ontology, the essay ends by exposing Heidegger’s latent and inexplicit formulation of phenomenology in terms of a radical correlation that holds aporetically between living and unliving experience. (shrink)

Psychiatric researchers typically assume that the modelling of psychiatric symptoms is not influenced by psychiatric categories; symptoms are modelled and then grouped into a psychiatric category. I highlight this primarily through analysing research domain criteria. RDoC’s importance makes it worth scrutinizing, and this assessment also serves as a case study with relevance for other areas of psychiatry. RDoC takes inadequacies of existing psychiatric categories as holding back causal investigation. Consequently, RDoC aims to circumnavigate existing psychiatric categories by directly investigating the (...) causal basis of symptoms. The unique methodological approach of RDoC exploits the supposed lack of influence of psychiatric categories on symptom modelling, taking psychiatric symptoms as the same regardless of which psychiatric category is employed or if no psychiatric category is employed. But this supposition is not always true. I will show how psychiatric categories can influence symptom modelling, whereby identical behaviours can be considered as different symptoms based on an individual’s psychiatric diagnosis. If the modelling of symptoms is influenced by psychiatric categories, then psychiatric categories will still play a role, a situation which RDoC researchers explicitly aim to avoid. I discuss four ways RDoC could address this issue. This issue also has important implications for factor analysis, cluster analysis, modifying psychiatric categories, and symptom based approaches. (shrink)

Modal structuralism promises an interpretation of set theory that avoids commitment to abstracta. This article investigates its underlying assumptions. In the first part, I start by highlighting some shortcomings of the standard axiomatisation of modal structuralism, and propose a new axiomatisation I call MSST (for Modal Structural Set Theory). The main theorem is that MSST interprets exactly Zermelo set theory plus the claim that every set is in some inaccessible rank of the cumulative hierarchy. In the second part of the (...) article, I look at the prospects for supplementing MSST with a modal structural reflection principle, as suggested in Hellman (2015). I show that Hellman’s principle is inconsistent (Theorem 5.32), and argue that modal structural reflection principles in general are either incompatible with modal structuralism or extremely weak. (shrink)

Introduction : time, film, and the ethical vision of Emmanuel Levinas. American transcendence : Levinas and a short history of an American idea in film -- Frank Capra and James Stewart : time, transcendence, and the other -- The changing face of American redemption : Henry Fonda, Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman, and Denzel Washington -- Sex, art, and Oedipus : The unbearable lightness of being -- Fellini and La dolce vita : documentary, decadence, and desire -- Antonioni and L'avventura : (...) transcendence, the body, and the feminine. (shrink)

A proposed empirical criterion for task susceptibility to introspective awareness distinguishes cognitive processes of which one cannot be aware from those of which one can be aware. The empirical criterion for task susceptibility to awareness effects proposes that there are tasks which cannot be affected by awareness of the rules constituting the tasks. These criteria were applied to research programmes in rule-learning in which past studies in the area of learning without awareness were included as well as current research in (...) implicit learning. The principal question addressed in these studies is whether or not rule-learning can occur without awareness. An historical review showed that rule-learning occurred in tasks which were both susceptible and insusceptible to introspective awareness and to awareness effects. Accordingly, it has been proposed that rather than attempt to decide theoretically and empirically between the opposing hypotheses—that of “cognitive learning” on the one hand, which assumes that awareness is a necessary condition for rule-learning, and that of “automatic learning” on the other, which assumes direct, automatic and unconscious processes—efforts should rather be directed toward developing a theoretical approach which is based on both conscious and unconscious processes. However, an approach of this kind encounters severe problems, such as the generation of contradictory predictions, which result from the employment of several incongruent and irreconcilable models of explanation. The criteria for task susceptibility offer a way out of these difficulties. (shrink)

Argues that the normative relation of commitment is routinely overlooked by philosophers, and that investigating it reveals some interesting similarities between the moral and rational domains.

The notion of mind‐independence plays a central role in the contemporary realism/anti‐realism debate, but the notion is severely ambiguous and consequently the source of considerable misunderstanding. In this paper, four kinds of mind‐independence are distinguished: ontological, causal, structural, and individuative independence. Appreciating these distinctions entails that one can reject the individuative independence of the natural world, and still maintain that the natural world is causally and structurally independent of us. This paper argues that so‐called anti‐realists, especially Rorty, Putnam, and Goodman, (...) are not opposed to the causal and structural independence of the natural world, as is frequently alleged, but rather its individuative independence. An acceptance of these points will hopefully put an end to the prevalence of strawmen in the debate, and focus attention on meatier issues. (shrink)

This paper examines Florence Nightingale's realist philosophy of science by comparing it to the contemporaneously dominant philosophy of positivism. It starts by adumbrating the tenets of positivism and continues by assessing the degree to which Nightingale accepted or rejected those tenets. It is argued that while she accepted much of positivism, on realist grounds she opposed its belief in phenomenalism, its rejection of speculative philosophy, its separation of fact and value, and its rejection of religion. Following an examination of how (...) Nightingale's philosophy impinged on her approach to nursing and health care, the paper concludes with a comparison of her ideas with those of modern realism and a discussion of the contemporary salience of her ideas. It is argued that while some aspects of her approach may no longer provide an appropriate basis for modern nursing, her environmental approach, her transcendental realism, and her adherence to caring values may still be of use to contemporary nurses. (shrink)

In this paper, I present and defend an explication of content in terms of the mathematical notion of information. In its most general formulation, the theory says that two states have the same content just in case they carry the same information, relative to a communication network. My account reifies content (it is the discrete counterpart to continuous information) and supports the idea that agents have internal means of comparing the contents of two thoughts. Further, it makes sense to say (...) that agents have communicated successfully when they coordinate on content in this sense; they have transmitted information without loss. (shrink)