The significance of the behavior of biological entities cannot be fully explained in terms of the physical and chemical processes upon which contemporary biological and medical research depends. The characteristic proper of biological entities is that they are systems marked by ‘inwardness’, that is, a capacity to interpret meanings in order to reach goals. The significance of this characteristic is given in examples from the author's morphological research. Keywords: biological research, inwardness, organism CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this?

We defend a functionalist approach to emotion that begins by focusing on emotions as central states with causal connections to behavior and to other cognitive states. The approach brackets the conscious experience of emotion, lists plausible features that emotions exhibit, and argues that alternative schemes are unpromising candidates. We conclude with the benefits of our approach: one can study emotions in animals; one can look in the brain for the implementation of specific features; and one ends up with an architecture (...) of the mind in which emotions are fully accommodated through their relations to the rest of cognition. Our article focuses on arguing for this general approach; as such, it is an essay in the philosophy of emotion rather than in the psychology or neuroscience of emotion. (shrink)

The exhilarating mix of humor, philosophy, fact and whimsy that marks these essays derives from more than 200 lectures Bruce Adolphe has given over most of the ...

Un traité classique de philosophie du droit pénal écrit au 19ème siècle par l'éminent philosophe français Adolphe Franck. Ce livre examine les fondements éthiques et philosophiques du système de justice pénale et propose une réflexion sur les principes sous-jacents qui devraient guider la politique pénale d'une société éclairée. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the (...) United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Our approach to emotion emphasized three key ingredients. We do not yet have a mature science of emotion, or even a consensus view—in this respect we are more hesitant than Sander, Grandjean, and Scherer or Luiz Pessoa. Relatedly, a science of emotion needs to be highly interdisciplinary, including ecology, psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy. We recommend a functionalist view that brackets conscious experiences and that essentially treats emotions as latent variables inferred from a number of measures. But our version of functionalism (...) is not definitional or ontological. It is resolutely methodological, in good part because it is too early to attempt definitions. (shrink)

The psychological and neurobiological processes underlying moral judgement have been the focus of many recent empirical studies1–11. Of central interest is whether emotions play a causal role in moral judgement, and, in parallel, how emotion-related areas of the brain contribute to moral judgement. Here we show that six patients with focal bilateral damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a brain region necessary for the normal generation of emotions and, in particular, social emotions12–14, produce an abnor- mally ‘utilitarian’ pattern of (...) judgements on moral dilemmas that pit compelling considerations of aggregate welfare against highly emotionally aversive behaviours (for example, having to sacrifice one person’s life to save a number of other lives)7,8. In contrast, the VMPC patients’ judgements were normal in other classes of moral dilemmas. These findings indicate that, for a selective set of moral dilemmas, the VMPC is critical for normal judgements of right and wrong. The findings support a necessary role for emotion in the generation of those judgements. (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)

Over the last few decades the biological sciences have developed a strong new branch which lays down certain important prerequisites for any conception of human nature. This is the science of behavior which has found a place half-way between its sister sciences, morphology and physiology, who are often very far apart from one another. The new science has given some of its representatives the will to try out new conceptions of the organism. “Behavior” combines structure and function in a new (...) whole, and it promises to overcome the separation between individual and environment, for a larger synthesis brings more comprehensive phenomena into view. It also promises to overcome the isolation of the individual, for it makes it possible to comprehend the individual as an integral part of a whole which is of necessity supra-individual. (shrink)

Based on studies with infants, we expand on Stoffregen & Bardy's explanation of perceptual motor errors, given the global array. Information pick-up from the global array is not sufficient without adequate exploratory movements and learning to support perceptually guided activity.