Western beliefs, Eastern religion, and modern science are reconciled in a religious philosophy Dr. Starratt has called Panentheism.

Variable responses to transcranial direct current stimulation protocols across individuals are widely reported, but the reasons behind this variation are unclear. This includes tDCS protocols meant to improve attention. Attentional control is impacted by top-down and bottom-up processes, and this relationship is affected by state characteristics such as anxiety. According to Attentional Control Theory, anxiety biases attention towards bottom-up and stimulus-driven processing. The goal of this study was to explore the extent to which differences in state anxiety and related measures (...) affect visual attention and category learning, both with and without the influence of tDCS. Using discovery learning, participants were trained to classify pictures of European streets into two categories while receiving 30 min of 2.0 mA anodal, cathodal, or sham tDCS over the rVLPFC. The pictures were classifiable according to two separate rules, one stimulus and one hypothesis-driven. The Remote Associates Test, Profile of Mood States, and Attention Networks Task were used to understand the effects of individual differences at baseline on subsequent tDCS-mediated learning. Multinomial logistic regression was fit to predict rule learning based on the baseline measures, with subjects classified according to whether they used the stimulus-driven or hypothesis-driven rule to classify the pictures. The overall model showed a classification accuracy of 74.1%. The type of tDCS stimulation applied, attentional orienting score, and self-reported mood were significant predictors of different categories of rule learning. These results indicate that anxiety can influence the quality of subjects’ attention at the onset of the task and that these attentional differences can influence tDCS-mediated category learning during the rapid assessment of visual scenes. These findings have implications for understanding the complex interactions that give rise to the variability in response to tDCS. (shrink)

Citation data have become an increasingly significant source of information for historians, sociologists, and other researchers studying the evolution of science. In the past few decades elaborate methodologies have been developed for the use of citation data in the study of the modern history of science. This article focuses on how citation indexes make it possible to trace the background and development of discoveries as well as to assess the credit that publishing scientists assign to particular discoverers. Kuhn's notion of (...) discovery is discussed. The priority dispute over the discovery of the AIDS virus is used as an example. (shrink)

Alfred A. Robb. THEOREM 54 If P1 and P2 be a pair of parallel inertia planes while an inertia plane Q1 has parallel general lines a and b in common with P1 and P2 respectively and if Q2 be an inertia plane parallel to Q1 through some ...

In einer früheren Arbeit habe ich neben anderem auch Poppers Theorie der rationalen Präferabilität der bestbewährten Theorie kritisiert und festgestellt, daß sie weder als Theorie der theoretischen Rationalität (d.i. die Rationalität des bloßen, an keinem anderen Zweck als dem des an der wissenschaftlichen Neugierde orientierten Glaubens, Meinens oder Führwahrhaltens)noch als Theorie der praktischen Rationalität (d.i. die Rationalität der auch an sonstigen Zwecken orientierten Handlungen bzw. Handlungsentscheidungen)tauglich sei. Im wesentlichen habe ich argumentiert, daß es bei der Verfolgung des Zieles, sich der (...) Wahrheit anzunähern, um nichts rationaler sei, die jeweils bestbewährte Theorie zu präferieren als sie nicht zu präferieren (und anstelle dessen die Präferenz z.B. vom Ergebnis eines Münzwurfes abhängig zu machen). Allerdings habe ich im Rahmen dieser Kritik „rational“ mit „begründet“ i.S. von „gute Gründe haben“ gleichgesetzt (und ich halte dies auch nach wie vor für richtig). Da nun aber David Miller behauptet, daß Rationalität durchaus ohne Bezugnahme auf gute Gründe auskomme (abgesehen davon, daß gute Gründe gar nicht beizubringen und – selbst wenn es sie gäbe – völlig unnütz wären), werde ich meine Argumentation entsprechend erweitern. (shrink)

The great three-volume Principia Mathematica is deservedly the most famous work ever written on the foundations of mathematics. Its aim is to deduce all the fundamental propositions of logic and mathematics from a small number of logical premisses and primitive ideas, and so to prove that mathematics is a development of logic. This abridged text of Volume I contains the material that is most relevant to an introductory study of logic and the philosophy of mathematics (more advanced students will wish (...) to refer to the complete edition). It contains the whole of the preliminary sections (which present the authors' justification of the philosophical standpoint adopted at the outset of their work); the whole of Part 1 (in which the logical properties of propositions, propositional functions, classes and relations are established); section 6 of Part 2 (dealing with unit classes and couples); and Appendices A and B (which give further developments of the argument on the theory of deduction and truth functions). (shrink)

Is the relation ‘is a morally permissible alternative to’ transitive? The answer seems to be a straightforward yes. If Act B is a morally permissible alternative to Act A and Act C is a morally permissible alternative to B then how could C fail to be a morally permissible alternative to A? However, as both Dale Dorsey and Frances Kamm point out, there are cases where this transitivity appears problematic. My aim in this paper is to provide a solution to (...) this problem. I will then investigate Kamm’s justification for rejecting the transitivity of the ‘is a permissible alternative to’ relation. Next, I will look at Dorsey’s solution, which involves a reinterpretation of the intuitions used to generate the problem. I will argue that neither of these solutions are fully satisfying before going on to provide my own solution to the problem and arguing that it avoids these problems. (shrink)

Even if everything is up for grabs in philosophy, some things are very difficult to doubt. It is hard to believe, for example, that no one ever acts intentionally. Even the most powerful arguments for the unreality of intentional action could do no more, we believe, than place one in roughly the position in which pre-Aristotelian Greeks found themselves when presented with one of Zeno's arguments that nothing can move from any given point A to any other point B. One (...) argument has it, for example, that in order to move from one point to another, a thing must first move to the half-way point; to do that, it must move half way to that point; and so on forever: so nothing ever moves at all. The argument undoubtedly stopped some auditors in their tracks; but eventually they moved on, most of them fully confident that they were doing precisely that. (shrink)

On the basis of the characterization of autonomy set out by Beauchamp and Childress in Principles of Biomedical Ethics, we first explore some of the parameters along which autonomy may vary in degree through a series of hypothetical examples drawn from various settings; and, second and in more detail, we examine how the range of autonomy is affected through informed consent to various medical diagnostic tests. Our conclusions are (1) that there are significant implications for patient autonomy inherent in new (...) and forthcoming diagnostic modalities, and (2) that attention should be paid to these implications in formulating policies for both clinical practice and research. We close with (a) some specific policy recommendations for clinical practice and research, and (b) some metaphysical speculations raised by our explorations. (shrink)

Es wird ein System von Postulaten entwickelt, welches unter Interpretation durch epistemische Wörter (Glauben, Wissen, gerechtfertigtes Glauben etc.) eine Explikation der einschlägigen Begriffe liefert. Die solcherart explizierten Begriffe ergeben, daß nur noch die Wahl zwischen Totalskepsis oder fundamentalistischer Erkenntnistheorie offen bleibt: kein gerechtfertigtes Glauben ist möglich ohne ein zugrundeHegendes Wissen vorauszusetzen. Der traditionellen Wissensdefinition (wahres gerechtfertigtes Glauben) wird ein guter Sinn unterlegt bei gleichzeitiger Vermeidung der bekannten Schwierigkeiten (z.B. Gettiers Problem).

Chisholm definiert seine ''Begriffe der epistemischen Bewertung" (z.B. "gewiß", "evident") mithilfe der Undefinierten Relation "vernünftiger als". Diese Relation ist zweideutig und es wird gezeigt, daß sich, wenn man die beiden Bedeutungen sorgfältig auseinanderhält, in jedem Fall die Chisholmschen Begriffe der epistemischen Bewertung als nicht adäquat definiert herausstellen.

Chisholm definiert seine ''Begriffe der epistemischen Bewertung" (z.B. "gewiß", "evident") mithilfe der Undefinierten Relation "vernünftiger als". Diese Relation ist zweideutig und es wird gezeigt, daß sich, wenn man die beiden Bedeutungen sorgfältig auseinanderhält, in jedem Fall die Chisholmschen Begriffe der epistemischen Bewertung als nicht adäquat definiert herausstellen.