This paper explores the possibility of the classroom as an exilic space of subversion in which we can pursue anarchist notions of personal transformation, relationships and society. Classroom environments in higher education institutions in Britain, particularly following the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework in September 2016, are premised upon relationships shaped by specific external standards: Employability, the instrumental pursuit of degrees, provider/consumer exchange, among others. Any notions of personal transformation are economic, and the broader goal is the pursuit of (...) economic gain for individual, company and country. In an act of subversion of these external standards, I propose theorising the classroom as an exilic space: a temporally and spatially bracketed space in which participants and their relationships are not beholden to these various external referents. Instead, I put forward the exilic classroom as an anarchic space in which the interactions of the participants are not pre-defined but are formed in the process of the interactions themselves. In theorising the exilic classroom I draw on the work of Obika Gray, and push his notion of exilic space further by integrating the works of Michel de Certeau, Jamie Heckert and Gustav Landauer to help propose a classroom defined as a positive subversive everyday space that is not bound by its opposition to wider structures. The creation of such an exilic classroom assists the participants in stepping out of their expected roles as ‘provider’ and ‘consumer’, or ‘teacher’ and ‘student’, and allows the creation of a space of possibilities for our relationships. (shrink)

This paper empirically investigates one aspect of the folk concept of time by testing how the presence or absence of directedness impacts judgements about whether there is time in a world. Experiment 1 found that dynamists, showed significantly higher levels of agreement that there is time in dynamically directed worlds than in non-dynamical non-directed worlds. Comparing our results to those we describe in Latham et al., we report that while ~ 70% of dynamists say there is time in B-theory worlds, (...) only ~ 45% say there is time in C-theory worlds. Thus, while the presence of directedness makes dynamists more inclined to say there is time in a world, a substantial subpopulation of dynamists judge that there is time in non-directed worlds. By contrast, a majority of non-dynamists judged that there was time in both growing block worlds and C-theory worlds, with no significant differences between the means. Experiment 2 found that when participants are only presented with non-dynamical worlds—namely, a directed world and a non-directed world—they report significantly higher levels of agreement that there is time in B-theory worlds. However, the majority of participants still judge that there is time in C-theory worlds. We conclude that while the presence of directedness bolsters judgements that there is time, most people do not judge it to be necessary for time. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo present the ethical issues, moral arguments, and reasons found in the ethical literature on organoid models.DesignIn this systematic review of reasons in ethical literature, we selected sources based on predefined criteria: The publication mentions moral reasons or arguments directly relating to the creation and/or use of organoid models in biomedical research; These moral reasons and arguments are significantly addressed, not as mere passing mentions, or comprise a large portion of the body of work; The publication is peer-reviewed and published (...) in an academic article, book, national-level report, working paper, or Ph.D. thesis; The publications collected are in English.AnalysisEach article was read in-depth for identifiable moral reasons, arguments, and concerns. These were then inductively classified and synthesized to create broader categories of reasons, and eventually an overarching conceptual scheme was created.ResultsA total of twenty-three sources were included and analyzed out of an initial 266 collected sources. Five themes of ethical issues and arguments were found: Animal Experimentation; Clinical Applications and Experiments; Commercialization and Consent; Organoid Ontology and Moral Status; and Research Ethics and Research Integrity. These themes are then further broken down into sub-themes and topics. Given the extensive nature of the topics found, we will focus on describing the topics that comprised of more in-depth reasons and arguments rather than few, passing mentions or concerns.ConclusionsThe ethics of organoids requires further deliberation in multiple areas, as much of the discussions are not presented as in-depth arguments. Such sentiments are also echoed throughout the organoid ethics literature. (shrink)

In this paper I will introduce a new compatibilist account of free action: indirect conscious control compatibilism, or just indirect compatibilism for short. On this account, actions are free either when they are caused by compatibilist‐friendly conscious psychological processes, or else by sub‐personal level processes influenced in particular ways by compatibilist‐friendly conscious psychological processes. This view is motivated by a problem faced by a certain family of compatibilist views, which I call conscious control views. These views hold that we act (...) freely when we act in a way that is caused by certain conscious psychological processes. One problem for such views is that current neuroscience suggests that most of our actions are not caused by such processes. Instead, many of the actions we typically suppose are free are caused by sub‐personal level processes and hence would count as not free according to contemporary conscious control views. I argue, contra these views, that many actions caused by these sub‐personal level processes are indirectly free. Further, most of the actions we ordinarily judge to be free are free in this indirect manner. (shrink)

In his article, “What should ChatGPT mean for bioethics?” I. Glenn Cohen explores the bioethical implications of Open AI’s chatbot ChatGPT and the use of similar Large Language Models (LLMs) (Cohen...

Cerebral organoid models in-of-themselves are considered as an alternative to research animal models. But their developmental and biological limitations currently inhibit the probability that organoids can fully replace animal models. Furthermore, these organoid limitations have, somewhat ironically, brought researchers back to the animal model via xenotransplantation, thus creating hybrids and chimeras. In addition to attempting to study and overcome cerebral organoid limitations, transplanting cerebral organoids into animal models brings an opportunity to observe behavioral changes in the animal itself. Traditional animal (...) ethics frameworks, such as the well-known three Rs (reduce, refine, and replace), have previously addressed chimeras and xenotransplantation of tissue. But these frameworks have yet to completely assess the neural-chimeric possibilities. And while the three Rs framework was a historical landmark in animal ethics, there are identifiable gaps in the framework that require attention. The authors propose to utilize an expanded three Rs framework initially developed by David DeGrazia and Tom L. Beauchamp, known as the Six Principles (6Ps). This framework aims to expand upon the three Rs, fill in the gaps, and be a practical means for assessing animal ethical issues like that of neural-chimeras and cerebral organoid xenotransplantation. The scope of this 6Ps application will focus on two separate but recent studies, which were published in 2019 and 2020. First, they consider a study wherein cerebral organoids were grown from donors with Down syndrome and from neurotypical donors. After these organoids were grown and studied, they were then surgically implanted into mouse models to observe the physiological effects and any behavioral change in the chimera. Second, they consider a separate study wherein neurotypical human embryonic stem cell-derived cerebral organoids were grown and transplanted into mouse and macaque models. The aim was to observe if such a transplantation method would contribute to therapies for brain injury or stroke. The authors place both studies under the lens of the 6Ps framework, assess the relevant contexts of each case, and provide relevant normative conclusions. In this way, they demonstrate how the 6Ps could be applied in future cases of neural-chimeras and cerebral organoid xenotransplantation. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes contends that a wise sovereign would censor books and limit verbal discourse for the majority of citizens. But this article contends that it is consistent with Hobbes’s philosophy to claim that a wise sovereign would allow a small number of citizens – those individuals who engage in scientific discourse and who are magnanimous and just – to disagree freely amongst themselves, engaging in discourse on controversial topics. This article reflects on Hobbes’s contention that these individuals can tolerate one (...) another’s differences and engage in verbal disagreement without any risk to the commonwealth. By engaging in open discourse, these individuals can better create valuable technology and provide counsel to the sovereign that is necessary to maintain peace. (shrink)

The purpose of this multi-study article was to investigate the roles of adaptability and social support in predicting a variety of psychological outcomes. Data were collected from Year 12 college students, university students, and non-studying members of the general public. Findings showed that, beyond variance attributable to social support, adaptability made a significant independent contribution to psychological wellbeing and psychological distress across all studies. Beyond the effects of adaptability, social support was found to make a significant independent contribution to most (...) wellbeing outcomes. In a multi-group analysis comparing predictors of psychological wellbeing in university students and non-studying adults, where the same outcome measures were used, it was found that adaptability played a stronger role for university students, whereas social support played a stronger role for non-studying adults. Finally, there was no evidence of an interaction between adaptability and social support predicting psychological outcomes—adaptability and social support operated as independent main effects. These findings demonstrate the importance of adaptability and social support in uniquely predicting psychological wellbeing in different sample groups. It is argued here that these two factors, should be given greater consideration in discussions of psychological wellbeing, and are relevant to psychological wellbeing at different major developmental life stages. (shrink)

This article revisits the Frankfurt School’s reflections on race, anti-Semitism and fascism, focusing especially on the theory of race implicit in Dialectic of Enlightenment. It argues that this theory has the potential to be developed into a critical functionalist theory of race that avoids both class and race reductionism, offering a thoroughly intersectional competitor to currently dominant philosophies of race. The key to such a theory is the view that racialization plays a functional role in sustaining capitalist exploitation. While Horkheimer (...) and Adorno focus on the scapegoat function of racialization, I argue that this function, while important, does not exhaust the possible functionalities of racialization and neglects an especially crucial function: the maintenance of a specifically racial form of exploitation. (shrink)

In this bold new study, Andrew J. Mason seeks both to shed light on the key issue of flux in Plato s work, and to show that there is also in Plato a notion of "flow" that needs to be distinguished from flux. Mason brings out the importance of this hitherto neglected distinction, and proposes on its basis a new way of understanding the development of Plato s thought. The opposition between the being of Forms and the becoming or (...) flux of sensibles has been fundamental to the understanding of Plato from Aristotle to the present day. One key concern of this volume is to clarify which kinds or levels of flux Plato accepts in sensibles. In addition, Mason argues that this traditional approach is unsatisfactory, as it leaves out the important notion of flow. Unlike flux, flow is a kind of motion that does not entail intrinsic change. It is also not restricted to the sensible, but covers motions of soul as well, including the circular motion of "nous" that is crucial in Plato s later thought, particularly his cosmology. In short, flow is not incompatible with being, and in this study Plato s development is presented, largely, as his arrival at this view, in correction of his earlier conflation of flux and flow in establishing the dichotomy between being and becoming. Mason s study offers fresh insights into many dialogues and difficult passages in Plato s oeuvre, and situates Plato s conception and usage of flow and flux in relation to earlier usage in the Greek poetic tradition and the Presocratic thinkers, particularly Heraclitus. The first study of its kind, "Flow and Flux" uncovers dimensions of Plato s thinking that may reshape the way his philosophy is understood.". (shrink)

Although religious ethicists commonly assess the content of public communication to determine its merits, this article argues that the style and techniques of communication deserve similar analysis. Propaganda often employs rhetorical techniques that impress the recipient through persuasive sleight-of-hand or emotional appeal. Drawing on the church fathers’ suspicion of classical rhetoric, as well as Augustine's guarded defense of a specific type of rhetoric, the author formulates two principles of ethical propaganda that may assist public communicators in persuading ethically. These two (...) principles are the procedural movement of beauty from truth, and the use of caritas as a primary motivator in persuasion. (shrink)

Some postcolonial theorists argue that the idea of a single system of belief known as "Hinduism" is a creation of nineteenth-century British imperialists. Andrew J. Nicholson introduces another perspective: although a unified Hindu identity is not as ancient as some Hindus claim, it has its roots in innovations within South Asian philosophy from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. During this time, thinkers treated the philosophies of Vedanta, Samkhya, and Yoga, along with the worshippers of Visnu, Siva, and Sakti, as (...) belonging to a single system of belief and practice. Instead of seeing such groups as separate and contradictory, they re-envisioned them as separate rivers leading to the ocean of Brahman, the ultimate reality. Drawing on the writings of philosophers from late medieval and early modern traditions, including Vijnanabhiksu, Madhava, and Madhusudana Sarasvati, Nicholson shows how influential thinkers portrayed Vedanta philosophy as the ultimate unifier of diverse belief systems. This project paved the way for the work of later Hindu reformers, such as Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, and Gandhi, whose teachings promoted the notion that all world religions belong to a single spiritual unity. In his study, Nicholson also critiques the way in which Eurocentric concepts—like monism and dualism, idealism and realism, theism and atheism, and orthodoxy and heterodoxy—have come to dominate modern discourses on Indian philosophy. (shrink)

Some philosophers contend that to effectively address problems such our global environmental crisis, humans must collectively embrace a polyphonic, environmentalist grand narrative, very different from the narratives accepted by modernists. Cultural theorists who write about metamodernism likewise discuss the recent return to a belief in narratives, and contend that our society’s current approach to narratives is very different from that of the modernists. In this paper, I articulate these philosophers’ and cultural theorists’ positions, and I highlight and explore interconnections between (...) them. Additionally, I argue that if the authors I discuss are correct, then we morally ought to embrace a metamodernist, polyphonic, environmentalist grand narrative, in order to effectively address an array of global crises. Such a grand narrative is a necessary ingredient of an adequate global ethics. (shrink)

Board composition, insider participation on compensation committees, and director compensation practices can potentially cause conflicts of interest between directors and shareholders. If these corporate governance structures result in situations where actions beneficial to directors do not also benefit shareholders, then shareholders may suffer.Corporate ethics programs usually address conflicts of interest that may arise in the firm''s activities. Some boards of directors take active roles in their firms'' ethics programs by actively overseeing the programs. This paper empirically examines the relationship between (...) ethics programs and potential conflicts of interest and the relationship between board involvement in a firm''s ethics program and potential conflicts of interest. (shrink)

Heraclitus is generally recognised as the first of the Greek thinkers to develop a psychology, but the understanding of his psychology is held back by the assumptions that his soul is a life-principle and is ‘comprehensive’ of the various faculties we regard as psychological. The fragment that best displays the revolutionary character of Heraclitus’ soul doctrine, from a properly psychological viewpoint, is B 85. I offer an extended analysis of this fragment in order to bear out the claims, firstly, that (...) psyche or ‘soul’ for Heraclitus is the intelligence alone, divine in origin, and secondly that thumos (primarily as the seat of desire) is a better candidate for his biological life-principle, whose exigencies are at odds with those of soul. I also offer some reflections on why, despite Heraclitus’ multifaceted influence on fifth-century thought, and despite the coherence of his psychology, this ‘revolution’ never quite took hold. (shrink)

Idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE) is a common type of epilepsy and despite an increase in the number of available anti-seizure medications, approximately 20–30% of people with IGE continue to experience seizures despite adequate medication trials. Unlike focal epilepsy, resective surgery is not a viable treatment option for IGE; however, neuromodulation may be an effective surgical treatment for people with IGE. Thalamic stimulation through deep brain stimulation (DBS) and responsive neurostimulation (RNS) have been explored for the treatment of generalized and focal (...) epilepsies. Although the data regarding DBS and RNS in IGE is limited to case reports and case series, the results of the published studies have been promising. The current manuscript will review the published literature of DBS and RNS within the centromedian nucleus of the thalamus for the treatment of IGE, as well as highlight an illustrative case. (shrink)

The only collection of Mead's writings published during his lifetime, these essays have heretofore been virtually inaccessible. Reck has collected twenty-five essays representing the full range and depth of Mead's thought. This penetrating volume will be of interest to those in philosophy, sociology, and social psychology. "The editor's well-organized introduction supplies an excellent outline of this system in its development. In view of the scattered sources from which these writings are gathered, it is a great service that this volume renders (...) not only to students of Mead, but to historians."—H. W. Schneider, _Journal of the History of Philosophy_. (shrink)

This book brings together emerging perspectives from organization theory and management, environmental sociology, international regime studies, and the social studies of science and technology to provide a starting point for discipline-based studies of environmental policy and corporate environmental behavior. Reflecting the book’s theoretical and empirical focus, the audience is two-fold: organizational scholars working within the institutional tradition, and environmental scholars interested in management and policy. Together this mix forms a creative synthesis for both sets of readers, analyzing how environmental policy (...) and organizational practices are shaped, spread and contested. (shrink)

How can artists create works of computer art or Internet art in which audience members become genuine artists and collaborate with the original artists on the self-same work that they began? To answer this question, this essay will reflect on the work of philosophers who focus on questions concerning art completion and the ontology of computer art. This essay will also reflect on the artistic work of the trio LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner, whose artwork can serve as a model for (...) creating collaborative, digital art. (shrink)

Boarding school is a major educational option for many students (e.g., students living in remote areas, or whose parents are working interstate or overseas, etc.). This study explored the motivation, engagement, and achievement of boarding and day students who are educated in the same classrooms and receive the same syllabus and instruction from the same teachers (thus a powerful research design to enable unique comparisons). Among 2,803 students (boardingn= 481; dayn= 2,322) from 6 Australian high schools and controlling for background (...) attributes and personality, we found predominant parity between boarding and day students in their motivation, engagement, and achievement. We also found that classroom-average motivation, engagement, and achievement was not significantly affected by the number of boarders (relative to day students) in the classroom. In addition, the effects of boarding were generally not moderated by students’ background or personality attributes. We conclude that boarders have academic opportunities and outcomes that are comparable to their day student counterparts. Implications for students, teachers, and parents are discussed. (shrink)

We investigated, experimentally, the contention that the folk view, or naïve theory, of time, amongst the population we investigated is dynamical. We found that amongst that population, ~ 70% have an extant theory of time that is more similar to a dynamical than a non-dynamical theory, and ~ 70% of those who deploy a naïve theory of time deploy a naïve theory that is more similar to a dynamical than a non-dynamical theory. Interestingly, while we found stable results across our (...) two experiments regarding the percentage of participants that have a dynamical or non-dynamical extant theory of time, we did not find such stability regarding which particular dynamical or non-dynamical theory of time they take to be most similar to our world. This suggests that there might be two extant theories in the population—a broadly dynamical one and a broadly non-dynamical one—but that those theories are sufficiently incomplete that participants do not stably choose the same dynamical theory as being most similar to our world. This suggests that while appeals to the ordinary view of time may do some work in the context of adjudicating disputes between dynamists and non-dynamists, they likely cannot do any such work adjudicating disputes between particular brands of dynamism. (shrink)

Proponents of manipulation arguments against compatibilism hold that manipulation scope (how many agents are manipulated) and manipulation type (whether the manipulator intends that an agent perform a particular action) do not impact judgments about free will and moral responsibility. Many opponents of manipulation arguments agree that manipulation scope has no impact but hold that manipulation type does. Recent work by Latham and Tierney (2022, 2023) found that people's judgments were sensitive to manipulation scope: people judged that an agent was less (...) free and responsible when a manipulation was existential (impacting at least one but not all agents) than when the manipulation was universal (impacting every agent). This study examines people's judgements about existential and universal manipulation cases that involve both intentional and non‐intentional outcomes. We found that manipulation scope also affects people's free will and responsibility judgments in manipulation cases involving both intentional and non‐intentional outcomes. Interestingly, we also found that manipulation type influences the effect that manipulation scope has on people's free will judgments but not their moral responsibility judgments, which indicates that people's free will and responsibility judgments can come apart. This puts pressure on the prevalent assumption that judgments about free will and moral responsibility are conceptually bound together. (shrink)

While the Bhagavad Gītā is an acknowledged treasure of world spiritual literature, few people know a parallel text, the Īśvara Gītā. This lesser-known work is also dedicated to a god, but in this case it is Śiva, rather than Kṛṣṇa, who is depicted as the omniscient creator of the world. Andrew J. Nicholson’s Lord Śiva’s Song makes this text available in English in an accessible new translation. A work of both poetry and philosophy, the Īśvara Gītā builds on the (...) insights of Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra and foreshadows later developments in tantric yoga. It deals with the pluralistic religious environment of early medieval India through an exploration of the relationship between the gods Śiva and Viṣṇu. The work condemns sectarianism and violence and provides a strategy for accommodating conflicting religious claims in its own day and in our own. (shrink)

Empirical work has lately confirmed what many philosophers have taken to be true: people are ‘biased toward the future’. All else being equal, we usually prefer to have positive experiences in the future, and negative experiences in the past. According to one hypothesis, the temporal metaphysics hypothesis, future-bias is explained either by our beliefs about temporal metaphysics—the temporal belief hypothesis—or alternatively by our temporal phenomenology—the temporal phenomenology hypothesis. We empirically investigate a particular version of the temporal belief hypothesis according to (...) which future-bias is explained by the belief that time robustly passes. Our results do not match the apparent predictions of this hypothesis, and so provide evidence against it. But we also find that people give more future-biased responses when asked to simulate a belief in robust passage. We take this to suggest that the phenomenology that attends simulation of that belief may be partially responsible for future-bias, and we examine the implications of these results for debates about the rationality of future-bias. (shrink)

It’s generally thought that we naively or pre-theoretically represent the future to be open. While philosophers have modelled future openness in different ways, it’s unclear which, if any, captures our naïve sense that the future is open. In this paper we focus on just one way the future might count as being open: by being nomically open, and empirically investigate whether our naïve representation of the future as open is partly constituted by representing the future as nomically open. We also (...) investigate the connection between our naïve representation of the future as open, and our representation of time. One of the purported advantages of the growing block theory of time is that it captures our naive sense that the future is open, and the past closed. We investigate whether there is an explanatory connection between people representing the future to be nomically open and representing our world to be a growing block and reflect on the implications of our findings for theorising about future openness and temporal ontology. (shrink)

An Enquiry into the Nature of Liberation: Bhaṭṭa Rāmakaṇṭha’s Paramokṣanirāsakārikāvṛtti, a Commentary on Sadyojyotiḥ’s Refutation of Twenty Conceptions of the Liberated State. Edited and translated by Alex Watson, Dominic Goodall, and S. L. P. Anjaneya Sarma. Collection Indologie, vol. 122. Pondicherry: Institut Français de Pondichéry, École française d’Extrême-Orient, 2013. Pp. 508. €38.

Introduction: Philosophy in Spite of Itself Aristotle defines man as the political and rational animal, but the readings in this book are guided by his ...

In recent years, third-party forgiveness has received renewed attention, much of it negative. While a few have undertaken important attempts to defend or expound accounts of third-party forgiveness, many suspect that it is incoherent, vicious, or both. If true, this would be bad news for Christians, for Christians rely on notions of third-party forgiveness for their accounts of salvation and pastoral authority. I think there is reason to think that some notions of third-party forgiveness can overcome the critics’ worries. In (...) what follows, I argue that third-party forgiveness is more common, coherent, salutary, and diverse in species than many critics suppose. After considering key objections to third-party forgiveness, I offer a constructive account of it that makes sense of these objections while also defending the underlying concept and act. What emerges from this defense is a newfound appreciation for the diverse species of third-party forgiveness. Still, some of these species are more intelligible and safeguarded from declension than others, and I conclude by examining the limits of third-party forgiveness by considering its most contentious species. (shrink)

Deflationists hold that it does not seem to us, in experience, as though time robustly passes. There is some recent empirical evidence that appears to support this contention. Equally, empirical evidence suggests that we naïvely represent time as dynamical. Thus deflationists are faced with an explanatory burden. If, as they maintain, the world seems to us in experience as though it is non-dynamical, then why do we represent time as dynamical? This paper takes up the challenge of investigating, on the (...) part of the deflationist, one candidate explanation. We hypothesise that people’s belief that the future is what we call deliberatively open partly explains why they represent time as dynamical. In a series of two experiments we test this hypothesis. We find no evidence that beliefs about deliberative openness explain why people represent time as dynamical. Hence there remains an explanatory burden for the deflationist to discharge. (shrink)