Power density spectra and phase synchrony measurements were taken from intracranial electrode grids implanted in epileptic subjects. Comparisons were made between data from the waking state and from the period of unconsciousness immediately following a generalised tonic–clonic seizure. Power spectra in the waking state resembled coloured noise. Power spectra in the unconscious state resembled coloured noise from 1 to about 5 Hz, but at higher frequencies changed in two out of three subjects to resemble white noise. This boosted unconscious gamma (...) power to a higher level than conscious gamma power. For both gamma and beta passbands, synchrony measurements showed more widespread phase synchrony in the unconscious than the conscious state. We conclude that neither gamma activity per se nor phase synchrony per se are neural correlates of consciousness. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: No Longer Patient: Feminist Ethics & Health Care. By Susan Sherwin Feminist Perspectives in Medical Ethics. Edited by Helen Bequaert Holmes and Laura M. Purdy.

How do educators better reach their students, better capture their attention and imagination without sacrificing scholarship? Teachable Moments: Essays on Experiential Education examines the pedagogy of Prescott College, a school that has embraced experiential education and been finding success with it for over thirty years. These essays—from scholars in fields as wide ranging as religious studies, environmental science, psychology, dance, literature, adventure education, and peace studies—examine the challenges and, ultimately, the rewards of student-centered education.

The purpose of this study was to compare working memory (WM), executive function, academic ability and problem classroom behaviors in children aged 8 to 11 years who were either identified via routine screening as having low WM, or had been diagnosed with ADHD. Standardised assessments of WM, executive function and reading and mathematics were administered to 83 children with ADHD, 50 children with low WM and 50 typically developing children. Teachers rated problem behaviors on checklists measuring attention, hyperactivity/impulsivity, oppositional behavior, (...) and difficulties associated with executive function in the classroom. The ADHD and low WM groups had highly similar WM and executive function profiles, but were distinguished in two key respects: children with ADHD had higher levels of rated and observed impulsive behavior, and children low WM had slower response times. Possible mechanisms for these common and distinct deficits are discussed. (shrink)

From the outside, Bayesian statistics may seem like a closed little corner of probability. Once a prior is specified you compute! From the inside the field is filled with problems, conceptual and otherwise. This paper surveys some of what remains to be done and gives examples of the work in progress via a Bayesian peek into Feller volume I.

Person‐specific evidence was developed as a grounded theory by analyzing 20 selected case descriptions from interventions using the guided self‐determination method with people with various long‐term health conditions. It explains the mechanisms of mobilizing relational capacity by including person‐specific evidence in shared decision‐making. Person‐specific self‐insight was the first step, achieved as individuals completed reflection sheets enabling them to clarify their personal values and identify actions or omissions related to self‐management challenges. This step paved the way for sharing these insights and (...) challenges in a relationship with a supportive health professional, who could then rely on person‐specific evidence instead of assumptions or a narrow disease perspective for shared decision‐making. Trust in the evidence encouraged the supportive health professional to transfer it to the interdisciplinary team. Person‐specific evidence then enhanced the ability of team members to apply general evidence in a meaningful way. The increased openness achieved by individuals through these steps enabled them to eventually share their new self‐insights in daily life with other people, decreasing loneliness they experienced in self‐management. Relational capacity, the core of the theory, is mobilized in both people with long‐term health conditions and healthcare professionals. Further research on person‐specific evidence and relational capacity in healthcare is recommended. (shrink)

What is called legal pragmatism today is very different from the older style of legal pragmatism traditionally associated with Oliver Wendell Holmes; and there is much that is worthwhile on the conception of the law revealed by reading Holmes's The Path of the Law in the light of the classical pragmatist tradition of Peirce, James, and Dewey. Here, reflections on the varieties of pragmatism - philosophical and legal, old and new - will be wrapped around an exploration of (...) Holmes's legal philosophy and the strengths and weaknesses of his arguments. (shrink)

This essay builds on recent work by Susan Haack to suggest that Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s conception of the common law was influenced by Darwinian evolution and classical pragmatism. This is no small claim: perceptions of what the common law is and does within the constitutional framework of the United States continue to be heavily debated. Holmes’s paradigm for the common law both revised and extended the models set forth by Sir Edward Coke, Thomas Hobbes, Sir Matthew (...) Hale, and Sir William Blackstone. Adding additional substance to Haack’s argument by pointing out passages in Holmes’s opinions and in his only book, The Common Law, that corroborate her claims about the particular features of Holmes’s pragmatism, this essay concludes by suggesting that, because of his connections with the classical pragmatists and his reverence for Emerson, Holmes is the best place to begin answering the famous question formulated by Stanley Cavell: “What’s the Use in Calling Emerson a Pragmatist?”. (shrink)

In 1880, when Oliver Wendell Holmes (later to be a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court) criticized the logical theology of law articulated by Christopher Columbus Langdell (the first Dean of Harvard Law School), neither Holmes nor Langdell was aware of the revolution in logic that had begun, the year before, with Frege's Begriffsschrift. But there is an important element of truth in Holmes's insistence that a legal system cannot be adequately understood as a system of axioms (...) and corollaries; and this element of truth is not obviated by the more powerful logical techniques that are now available. (shrink)

After a brief sketch of the history of philosophical pragmatism generally, and of legal pragmatism specifically (section 1), this paper develops a new, neo-classical legal pragmatism: a theory of law drawing in part on Holmes, but also on ideas from the classical pragmatist tradition in philosophy. Main themes are the "pluralistic universe" of law (section 2); the evolution of legal systems (section 3); the place of logic in the law (section 4); and the relation of law and morality (section (...) 5). (shrink)

A natural language is an organic living thing; and meanings change as words take on new, and shed old, connotations. Recent philosophy of language has paid little attention to the growth of meaning; radical philosophers like Feyerabend and Rorty have suggested that meaning-change undermines the pretensions of science to be a rational enterprise. Thinkers in the classical pragmatist tradition, however -Peirce in philosophy of science and, more implicitly, Holmes in legal theory- both recognized the significance of growth of meaning, (...) and understood how it can contribute to the progress of science and to the adaptation of a legal system to changing circumstances. This paper develops these insights, and illustrates them by reference to the growth of meaning of "DNA" from the identification of "nuclein" to the discovery of mtDNA almost a century later, and the growth of meaning of "the establishment of religion" in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution from its ratification in 1791 to the present day. Arguing that the growth of meaning can indeed contribute to rationality, it also shows why narrowly formal models are inadequate both to science and to law. Un lenguaje natural es una cosa viviente orgánica, y los significados cambian a medida que las palabras adoptan nuevas connotaciones y abandonan viejas. La filosofía del lenguaje reciente ha prestado poca atención al desarrollo del significado; filósofos radicales, como Feyerabend y Rorty han sugerido que el cambio de significado socava las pretensiones de la ciencia de ser una empresa racional. Pensadores en la tradición pragmatista clásica, sin embargo -Peirce en la filosofía de la ciencia y, más implícitamente, Holmes en la teoría del Derecho- reconocieron la importancia del desarrollo del significado y comprendieron cómo éste puede contribuir al progreso de la ciencia y a la adaptabilidad de un sistema jurídico a las circunstancias cambiantes. Este trabajo desarrolla estas ideas, y las ilustra por medio de una referencia a el desarrollo del significado de "ADN" desde la identificación de la "nucleína" hasta el descubrimiento del ADN mitocondrial casi un siglo más tarde, y el desarrollo del significado de "el establecimiento de una religión" en la Primera Enmienda de la Constitución de los Estados Unidos desde su ratificación en 1791 hasta la actualidad. Argumentando que el desarrollo del significado puede contribuir mucho a la racionalidad, también muestra por qué los modelos estrechamente formales son inadecuados, tanto para la ciencia como para el Derecho. (shrink)

This paper offers an account of Susan Haack’s philosophy of law and points out several aspects within the legal pragmatist tradition that deserve further discussion. Firstly, a systematic presentation of legal pragmatism as it is defended by Haack, who follows Justice Oliver W. Holmes here, is given. Secondly, the limits of an evolutionary perspective of law recommended by legal pragmatism are considered. Finally, the paper discusses whether legal pragmatism is able to handle different legal traditions, thereby focusing on (...) Anglo-American common law and European civil law. (shrink)

Introduction [Nancy L. Rosenblum] I. Varieties of Liberalism Today 1. The Liberalism of Fear [Judith N. Shklar] 2. Humanist Liberalism [Susan Moller Okin] 3. Liberal Democracy and the Costs of Consent [Benjamin R. Barber] II. Education and the Moral Life 4. Undemocratic Education [Amy Gutmann] 5. Civic Education in the Liberal State [William Galston] III. Moral Conflict 6. Class Conflict and Constitutionalism in J. S. Mill’s Thought [Richard Ashcraft] 7. Making Sense of Moral Conflict [Steven Lukes] 8. Liberal Dialogue (...) Versus a Critical Theory of Discursive Legitimation [Seyla Benhabib] IV. Repairing Individualist and Communitarian Failings 9. Cross-Purposes: The Liberal--Communitarian Debate [Charles Taylor] 10. Democratic Individuality and the Meaning of Rights [George Kateb] 11. Pluralism and Self-Defense [Nancy L. Rosenblum] 12. The Permanent Structure of Antiliberal Thought [Stephen Holmes]. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: No Longer Patient: Feminist Ethics & Health Care. By Susan Sherwin Feminist Perspectives in Medical Ethics. Edited by Helen Bequaert Holmes and Laura M. Purdy.

The origin of this special issue is in my experience as Laurence S. Rockefeller Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. Since one of my duties at Princeton was to teach an undergraduate class, I decided to teach a course on Ethics and the Environment. The class was taught in the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs, and also cross-listed with the Philosophy Department. My suggestion that the course also be (...) cross-listed with the Princeton Environmental Institute was greeted with surprise. After all, this was a course on ethics. What could it possibly have to do with the Princeton Environmental Institute? Environmental institutes are about science, not philosophy; at least this is what the administrator in charge seemed to think.At that moment I decided to organise a workshop on environmental values bringing together humanists, social scientists and natural scientists to discuss this topic. I wanted to invite outstanding researchers in the area of environmental values, and subject their papers to the scrutiny of Princeton scholars. I hoped that this might have positive spillover effects on students and the university community at large. To a great extent, I think, these hopes were realised.The workshop was held on 2 May 2005. Two panels were devoted to particular dimensions of environmental values, and a third panel analysed conflicting values in the climate change debate. For each panel there was a discussant, and Gustav Speth, the Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, gave the keynote address. With the exception of the keynote address and one paper presented in the climate change session, this special issue includes all of the papers delivered at the workshop. However, the papers have been revised, refereed, and revised again since their original presentation.The papers by Emily Brady, Holmes Rolston III, and Dana Philips discuss aesthetic and spiritual dimensions of environmental values. Brady's paper is aimed at showing how aesthetic valuing is embedded in our relationships with nature and how it underpins many of our attitudes toward the environment. For these reasons such values are and ought to be important to environmental policy debates. Philips begins with a careful reading of Thoreau, but arrives at an iconoclastic stance towards the role of nature writing in environmental valuation. While he grants that such writing has been important in the development of the American environmental movement , he observes that such 'inspiration' risks producing 'both purple prose and poor doctrine', citing some examples. Rolston declares that ethics and religion are central to questions of environmental policy. For the sciences, including economics, cannot tell us how to value nature. He concludes with a frankly religious appeal: 'If anything at all on Earth is sacred, it must be this enthralling creativity that characterises our home planet. If anywhere, here is the brooding Spirit of God.' In her discussion of these papers, Susan Stewart observes that the assertion of the centrality of aesthetic considerations to environmental policy sometimes seems to be a matter of wishful thinking, at least when compared to the grim calculus of short-term economic gain. What is needed, Stewart suggests, is to free environmental policy-making from 'the short leash of necessity' and refocus it instead on the superfluity of experience given to us by nature.Thomas Dunlap, Thomas Hill Jr., and Kimberly Smith focus on moral, political, and religious values. Chiming with Rolston, Dunlap claims that environmentalism is ultimately a religious movement, and that this explains much of its power and passion. Acknowledging its 'roots in secular faiths and conventional religion may be necessary' to reignite environmentalism, which has become stalled, at least as a political movement in America. Hill, by contrast, proposes to show 'without metaphysical obscurity or undue anthropocentrism, how and why it is good to value certain natural phenomena for their own sakes and to recognise and respond appropriately to the value they have ... independently of human rights and welfare'. Kimberly Smith surveys environmental political theory, focusing on the rising idea that nature is not just an object of politics, but also a subject. In his commentary, Michael Smith expresses scepticism about Dunlap's claims. He draws on Hill's paper to show that environmentalism may be justified on a number of different grounds, thus there may be no conceptual reason to advert to religious justifications. Moreover, even if it is true that environmentalism originated in a religious sensibility, it does not follow that returning to these roots would be most politically potent in forwarding the movement. A highly contextualised empirical argument about political tactics would be required to secure this conclusion. Finally, Michael Smith voices some suspicions about Kimberly Smith's idea of nature as a subject, and in particular her treatment of the social contract tradition.The issue concludes with papers on climate change by Steve Gardiner, Michael Toman and Michael McCracken, and a commentary by Peter Singer. Toman reviews the debate over the role of economics in setting climate change policy. He goes on to sketch a way in which technical economic analysis and public dialogue might be combined. McCracken wants to explain more generally why, in the United States at least, there is so much political controversy over climate change even in the face of growing scientific consensus. The reason, he claims, is that both the public and policy-makers are subjected to diverse interpretations of the evidence. Different communities 'spin' the science in ways that suit their own interests. Gardiner argues that climate change is a 'perfect moral storm' that presents us with almost insuperable obstacles to our ability to make the hard choices necessary to address it. Most disturbing, this perfect storm makes us extremely vulnerable to moral corruption. Singer agrees with much of the diagnosis presented in these papers, but he thinks that McCracken lets the Bush administration off the hook too easily. Sometimes the best explanation for bad policy is bad policy-makers who have bad values. Singer sketches his own version of a just solution to the climate change problem, and concludes by speculating that self-interest may yet provoke the United States into acting responsibly. Many people helped to make the workshop and the publication of this special issue possible. Princeton University in various guises provided funds, space, and organisational resources. Several members of the faculty, especially William Howarth, Stephen Macedo and Francois M.M. Morel, were unflinching in their support and generous with their advice. The editors of Environmental Values, particularly Clive Spash who oversaw the production of this issue, have been both enthusiastic and efficient, while ensuring that the issue conforms to the highest standards of professional scholarship. Hovering in the background are those anonymous scholars who reviewed the papers and made many suggestions for improvements, as well as the administrative support staff at both Princeton and Environmental Values who helped bring the event and the issue into existence. Finally, I would like to thank the contributors both for their cooperation and contributions.In my opinion, almost anyone can find something to learn from each of these papers. However, the best way to read them is not singly, but in light of each other. Taken as a whole, the papers in this issue approach questions about environmental values from various perspectives, backgrounds, and concerns. Whatever else may result from the publication of this issue, I hope that it will constitute one small step towards making clear that environmental questions are not narrowly confined to particular disciplines or departments of knowledge, but are best approached from multiple perspectives, drawing on a wide range of materials, methodologies and expertise. (shrink)

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. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

[ Susan Hurley] I argue that the aim to neutralize the influence of luck on distribution cannot provide a basis for egalitarianism: it can neither specify nor justify an egalitarian distribution. Luck and responsibility can play a role in determining what justice requires to be redistributed, but from this we cannot derive how to distribute: we cannot derive a pattern of distribution from the 'currency' of distributive justice. I argue that the contrary view faces a dilemma, according to whether (...) it understands luck in interpersonal or counterfactual terms. /// [Richard J. Arneson] Does it make sense to hold that, if it is bad that some people are worse off than others, it is worse if those who are worse off come to be so through sheer bad luck that it is beyond their power to control? In her contribution to this symposium, Susan Hurley cautions against a closely related fallacy: from the fact that people have come to an unequal condition through unchosen bad luck, it does not follow that, if we aim to undo the influence of unchosen luck, we ought to institute equality of condition. Forswearing the fallacy that Hurley analyses is compatible with answering the question affirmatively, and more generally with holding that principles of distributive justice should be sensitive to the distinction between chosen and unchosen bad luck. This essay explores how this might be done. (shrink)

Does Spinoza present philosophy as the preserve of an elite, while condemning the uneducated to a false though palliative form of ‘true religion’? Some commentators have thought so, but this contribution aims to show that they are mistaken. The form of religious life that Spinoza recommends creates the political and epistemological conditions for a gradual transition to philosophical understanding, so that true religion and philosophy are in practice inseparable.

This is the text of Dr. Sterrett's replies to an interviewer's questions for simplycharly.com, a website with interviews by academics on various authors, philosophers, and scientists.

At the turn of the 21st century, Susan Leigh Anderson and Michael Anderson conceived and introduced the Machine Ethics research program, that aimed to highlight the requirements under which autonomous artificial intelligence systems could demonstrate ethical behavior guided by moral values, and at the same time to show that these values, as well as ethics in general, can be representable and computable. Today, the interaction between humans and AI entities is already part of our everyday lives; in the near (...) future it is expected to play a key role in scientific research, medical practice, public administration, education and other fields of civic life. In view of this, the debate over the ethical behavior of machines is more crucial than ever and the search for answers, directions and regulations is imperative at an academic, institutional as well as at a technical level. Our discussion with the two inspirers and originators of Machine Ethics highlights the epistemological, metaphysical and ethical questions arising by this project, as well as the realistic and pragmatic demands that dominate artificial intelligence and robotics research programs. Most of all, however, it sheds light upon the contribution of Susan and Michael Anderson regarding the introduction and undertaking of a main objective related to the creation of ethical autonomous agents, that will not be based on the “imperfect” patterns of human behavior, or on preloaded hierarchical laws and human-centric values. (shrink)

Susan Edwards-McKie interviews Professor Dr B. F. McGuinness on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

In this paper I lay out what I take to be the crucial insights in Susan Bordo's "Feminist Skepticism and the 'Maleness' of Philosophy" and point out some additional difficulties with the skeptical position. I call attention to an ambiguity in the nature or content of the "maleness" of philosophy that Bordo identifies. Finally, I point out that, unlike some feminist skeptics, Bordo never loses sight in her work of women's lived experiences.

In this interview, which took place in July 2020, Muhammad Asghari, an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Tabriz, asked eleven questions (via email ) to Professor Susan Haack, a distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of Miami. This American philosopher eagerly and patiently emailed me the answers to the questions. The questions in this interview are mainly about analytic philosophy and pragmatist philosophy.This interview was conducted via personal email between me and Professor (...) Susan Haack in July 2020. This interview, which Professor Hawk eagerly accepted, includes eleven questions about her biography and roles of various philosophers in her thought and finally about the influence of the philosophy of pragmatism on her thought. Of course, it goes without saying that the Haack's book Philosophy of Logic in Iran has been translated into Persian and he has published two articles in the quarterly journal of Philosophical Investigations (University of Tabriz) and I also have translated one of her articles into Persian. What was most interesting to me was the influence of pragmatism on Haack's thought that Charles Sanders Pierce, among classical American pragmatists, had as much influence on this philosopher's thought as John Dewey had in Rorty's thought. Here I thank Professor Susan Haack for answering my questions patiently and eagerly. (shrink)