The effort to identify the neural substrate of episodic recall, though ambitious, lacks experimental support. By considering the data on c-fos activation by novel and familiar stimuli in recognition studies, we illustrate how inadequate experimental designs permit alternative interpretations. We stress that interpretation of c-fos expression changes should be supported by adequate recognition tests.

The abstract basis of modern computation is the formal description of a finite state machine, the Universal Turing Machine, based on manipulation of integers and logic symbols. In this contribution to the discourse on the computer-brain analogy, we discuss the extent to which analog computing, as performed by the mammalian brain, is like and unlike the digital computing of Universal Turing Machines. We begin with ordinary reality being a permanent dialog between continuous and discontinuous worlds. So it is with computing, (...) which can be analog or digital, and is often mixed. The theory behind computers is essentially digital, but efficient simulations of phenomena can be performed by analog devices; indeed, any physical calculation requires implementation in the physical world and is therefore analog to some extent, despite being based on abstract logic and arithmetic. The mammalian brain, comprised of neuronal networks, functions as an analog device and has given rise to artificial neural networks that are implemented as digital algorithms but function as analog models would. Analog constructs compute with the implementation of a variety of feedback and feedforward loops. In contrast, digital algorithms allow the implementation of recursive processes that enable them to generate unparalleled emergent properties. We briefly illustrate how the cortical organization of neurons can integrate signals and make predictions analogically. While we conclude that brains are not digital computers, we speculate on the recent implementation of human writing in the brain as a possible digital path that slowly evolves the brain into a genuine (slow) Turing machine. (shrink)

We explore the notion that culture influences people’s values, and their subsequent ideologies and ethical behaviors. We present the idea that culture itself changes with time, and explore the influence of culture and generational markers on consumer ethics by examining differences in these ethical dimensions between Australians, Indonesians, and Indonesian Migrants in Australia, as well as differences between Generation X versus Generations Y and Z. The present study addresses the need to investigate the role that culture plays in consumer ethics, (...) and the interaction between culture and generational attitudes in determining consumer ethics. Results established a distinct multiculturality in our three cultural samples, including a generational cohort differences. This suggests that culture and generational markers influence ethical beliefs, ideologies, and consumer ethics. It further indicates that Indonesian Migrants have acculturated to Australian society both in terms of their values and consumer behaviors, illustrating a crossvergence effect; scores indicate that these Migrants have the highest cultural intelligence among our samples. Implications of the findings for consumer ethics theory and practice are considered and future directions identified. (shrink)

(2013). Legal idioms: a framework for evidential reasoning. Argument & Computation: Vol. 4, Formal Models of Reasoning in Cognitive Psychology, pp. 46-63. doi: 10.1080/19462166.2012.682656.

This paper argues that many ethical issues in neuroeducational research cannot be appropriately addressed using the principles and guidance available in one of these areas alone, or by applying these in simple combination. Instead, interdisciplinary and public dialogue will be required to develop appropriate normative principles. In developing this argument, it examines neuroscientific and educational perspectives within three broad categories of ethical issue arising at the interface of cognitive neuroscience and education: issues regarding the carrying out of interdisciplinary research, the (...) scrutiny and communication of findings and concepts, and the application of research and associated issues of policy likely to arise in the future. To help highlight the need for interdisciplinary and public discussion, we also report the opinions of a group of educators (comprising trainee teachers, teachers and head teachers) on the neuroeducational ethics of cognitive enhancing drugs, infant screening, genetic profiling and animal research. (shrink)

Recently, commentators close to and within the UK government have claimed that patient choice can increase equity in the context of the National Health Service. This article critically examines the basis for this claim through analysis of recent speeches and publications authored by secretaries of state for health and their policy advisers. It is concluded that this claim has not developed prospectively from an analysis of the causes of healthcare inequity, or even with a consistent normative definition of equity. The (...) limited justification that is “framed in causal explanations” of inequity has suffered from an apparent disregard of the available evidence. (shrink)

Lifestyle refers to a set of personal and group behaviours related to normative and semantic aspects of social life. Any coherent set of behavioural patterns derived from religious teachings that exist in life can be considered a religious lifestyle. Considering that the dominant religion in Jordan is Islam, the present study focused on the Islamic lifestyle. In addition, given that the correct relationship between couples has been compared to life-giving blood in marriage, and since the quality of marital role plays (...) a determining role, the existence of communication skills in any of the couples can generate satisfaction and compatibility, whereas lack of awareness of these skills could cause misunderstandings and tension. Therefore, the current study aims to study the role of the Islamic lifestyle in communication skills of 250 Muslim couples of Jordan (Amman, Zarqa and Irbid) in 2022. Data were collected using questionnaires during four months, and the validity and reliability was confirmed. In addition, data analysis was performed in Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and Linear Structural Relations (LISREL) using mean tests and structural equation modelling. According to the results, Islamic lifestyle had a positive, significant effect on the improvement of communication skills in Muslim couples in Jordan (P-value: 0.76; T-value: 7.92). Therefore, it is recommended that more attention should be paid to this issue by families, researchers and cultural authorities in the country.Contribution: Our findings revealed that Islamic lifestyle improved communication skills in Muslim couples, which demands special attention. By adhering to the Islamic lifestyle, couples can influence each other’s knowledge, emotions, education and growth, and try to have a realistic understanding of each other’s desires, needs, living environment and perceptions that each has in life issues. Furthermore, they can organise their role in the common life in appropriate ways to prevent problems and solve them in the event of problems. (shrink)

Este livro aborda algumas mudanças ocorridas recentemente na sociedade ocidental, resultantes de importantes inovações biomédicas e sociojurídicas, e os problemas bioético-religiosos delas decorrentes. Todas essas questões possuem implicações para a reprodução humana e social e afetam categorias analíticas consagradas, como as de casamento, família, filhos, paternidade/maternidade, entre outras. Os textos aqui reunidos dão a idéia das transformações sociais, políticas, demográficas e conceituais que estão em curso nessa primeira década do século XXI.

The discovery-justification distinction stands as a pivotal issue within 20th-century philosophy of science. It subtly underpins many foundational topics and concepts pertinent to our comprehension of knowledge. Thomas Kuhn's contributions are indispensable in this regard, with his critiques playing a pivotal role in shaping both his initial model of scientific progress and its subsequent revisions. Kuhn addressed this dichotomy head-on in the first of his Thalheimer Lectures, presented in 1984. In this paper, we revisit Pablo Melogno's (2019) examination of Kuhn's (...) engagement with this theme. Concurring with Melogno, our analysis extends his interpretation by exploring Larry Laudan's objections to certain research programs focused on a logic of discovery. We further scrutinize specific assumptions about discovery heuristics that have been misinterpreted within Laudan's methodological framework, particularly the one stemming from Herbert Simon's pioneering work. By synthesizing these perspectives, we aim to set up a preliminary framework for a more refined understanding of how history and philosophy of science inform the epistemic practices of agents operating with bounded rationality. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The author of a Christian Letter cited a passage from John Jewel’s A Reply to Harding’s Answer in which the first major apologist of the Elizabethan Settlement spoke of the role of faith and the sacraments in union with Christ. Andrew Willet, the likely author of this work, quoted it against Richard Hooker in order to show how the latter contravened the sacramental theology of the national Church as interpreted by Jewel as one of the foremost expositors of its (...) doctrine. Jewel, however, in his Reply to Harding’s Answer, enumerates four means of the Christian’s union with Christ: the Incarnation, faith, baptism, and the Eucharist-a fact overlooked in A Christian Letter by its author in his endeavor to impeach Hooker’s orthodoxy. Proceeding from the observation that both Jewel and Hooker believed that the locus of Christian salvation is union with Christ, this essay compares the two divines’ respective views of this union by examining the manner in which they understand the role of each of these means forming and maintaining this union. On the basis of this comparison, the essay argues that A Christian Letter misrepresented Jewel’s position and that Hooker’s view of union with Christ was essentially the same as the late bishop of Salisbury’s, notwithstanding some differences in detail and emphases. The article concludes with the opinion that Hooker represents continuity of a particular soteriological emphasis in the Elizabethan Church that can possibly be traced back to Jewel as a representative of the Reformed tradition stressing this doctrine. (shrink)

In his Apology of the Church of England as well as many of his other works, John Jewel defended the orthodoxy of the Elizabethan Church on the basis of the following criteria: Scripture, the first four general councils, the writings of the Church Fathers, and the example of the primitive church.1 By emphasizing these authorities, the bishop of Salisbury also sought to impeach the Roman Church’s claim to orthodoxy by arguing that doctrines and practices which developed subsequently to the early (...) church as defined by these criteria contradict them, thereby nullifying its charge of heresy against Protestants while simultaneously indicting the papacy itself as heretical. A question that emerges from studying Jewel’s prodigious polemical works concerns the source of this means of determining orthodoxy. Answering this question requires a close analysis of the apologist’s use of sources. This article will attempt to answer this question by arguing that this criteria for defining orthodoxy derived mainly from canon law tradition that is confirmed specifically by Gratian’s Decretum. This thesis maintains that Jewel’s criteria constituted a form of the ius antiqua with which he attacked the ius novum that provided the authoritative basis for papal supremacy, and in so doing, sought to vindicate the Elizabethan Church’s place in ancient catholic tradition. (shrink)

This article will examine the role the first four ecumenical councils played in the controversial enterprises of John Jewel (1522-71) as well as two later early modern English theologians, Richard Hooker (1553-1600) and George Carleton (1559-1628). In three different polemical contexts, each divine portrays the councils as representing definitive catholic consensus not only for doctrine, but also ecclesiastical order and governance. For all three of these theologians, the manner in which the first four ecumenical councils were summoned and conducted, as (...) well as their enactments touching the Church’s life provided patristic norms for its rightful administration. Jewel, Hooker, and Carleton each argued that the English Protestant national Church as defined by the Elizabethan Settlement exemplified a faithful recovery of patristic conciliar ecclesiastical government as an essential component in England’s overall endeavor to return to the true Church Catholic. Jewel employed these councils in order to impeach the Council of Trent’s (1545-63) status as a general council, and to justify the transfer of the authority of general councils to national and regional synods under the direction of godly princes. Hooker proposes the recovery of general councils as a means of achieving Catholic consensus within a Christendom divided along national and confessional lines while at the same time employing the pronouncements of the first four general councils to uphold the authoritative patristic and catholic warrant for institutions and practices retained by the Elizabethan Church. Finally, amid the controversy surrounding the Oath of Allegiance during the reign of James VI/1 (r. 1603-25), George Carleton devoted his extensive examination of these councils to refute papal claims to coercive authority with which to depose monarchs as an extension of excommunication. In so doing, Carleton relocates this ‘coactive jurisdiction’ in the ecclesiastical authority divinely invested in the monarch, making the ruler the source of conciliar authority, and arguably of catholic consensus itself. (shrink)

John Jewel, regarded as the principal apologist and theologian for the Elizabethan Church, was also esteemed as one of England’s most important authority on the subject of usury, and therefore was cited frequently by opponents of usury towards the end of the sixteenth century and throughout the seventeenth century. One of the most sustained interpretations of Jewel as a theologian on the subject of usury was by Christoph Jelinger, who observed that the late bishop of Sarum employed the same theological (...) method in opposing usury as he did in defending the doctrines and practices of the Church of England against its Catholic opponents, that is, by appealing to the Scriptures, the Church Fathers, Church Councils, and the example of the primitive church. This article seeks to confirm the opinion of Jelinger, and in doing so show that Jewel’s opposition to usury stemmed primarily from the conviction that it was both a vice and heresy that eroded the unifying attribute of Christian society which was love. (shrink)

Gabriel Marcel is a neosocratic philosopher, a permanent questioner in search for truth. His thought, which is not existentialist in a strict sense, is addressed to the other men and tries to arouse their hope and their ability to heart to heart dialogue.

Some researchers and autistic activists have recently suggested that because some ‘autism-related’ behavioural atypicalities have a function or purpose they may be desirable rather than undesirable. Examples of such behavioural atypicalities include hand-flapping, repeatedly ordering objects (e.g., toys) in rows, and profoundly restricted routines. A common view, as represented in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) IV-TR (APA, 2000), is that many of these behaviours lack adaptive function or purpose, interfere with learning, and constitute the non-social behavioural (...) dysfunctions of those disorders making up the Autism Spectrum. As the DSM IV-TR continues to be the reference source of choice for professionals working with individuals with psychiatric difficulties, its characterization of the Autism Spectrum holds significant sway. We will suggest Extended Mind and Enactive Cognition Theories, which theorize that mind (or cognition) is embodied and environmentally embedded, as coherent conceptual and theoretical spaces within which to investigate the possibility that certain repetitive behaviours exhibited by autistics possess functions or purposes that make them desirable. As lenses through which to re-examine ‘autism-related’ behavioral atypicalities, these theories not only open up explanatory possibilities underdeveloped in the research literature, but also cohere with how some autistics describe their own experience. Our position navigates a middle way between the view of autism as understood in terms of impairment, deficit and dysfunction and one that seeks to de-pathologize the Spectrum. In so doing we seek to contribute to a continuing dialogue between researchers, clinicians and self- or parent advocates. (shrink)

The central point of this essay is to demonstrate the incommensurability of ‘Darwinian fitness’ with the numeric values associated with reproductive rates used in population genetics. While sometimes both are called ‘fitness’, they are distinct concepts coming from distinct explanatory schemes. Further, we try to outline a possible answer to the following question: from the natural properties of organisms and a knowledge of their environment, can we construct an algorithm for a particular kind of organismic life-history pattern that itself will (...) allow us to predict whether a type in the population will increase or decrease relative to other types? Introduction Darwinian fitness Reproductive fitness and genetical models of evolution The models of reproductive fitness 4.1 The Standard Viability Model 4.2 Frequency-dependent selection 4.3 Fertility models 4.4 Overlapping generations Fitness as outcome 5.1 Fitness as actual increase in type 5.2 Fitness as expected increase in type 5.2.1 Expected increase within a generation 5.2.2 Expected increase between generations 5.2.3 Postponed reproductive fitness effects The book-keeping problem Conclusion. (shrink)

The works of the early Greek philosophers are not only a fundamental source for understanding archaic Greek culture and the whole of ancient philosophy, but also a perennially fresh resource that has stimulated Western thought until the present day. This nine-volume edition presents all the major fragments from the sixth to the fourth centuries BC.

In 2016, following pandemic influenza threats and the 2014–2016 Ebola virus disease outbreaks, the WHO developed a guidance document for managing ethical issues in infectious disease outbreaks. In this article, we analyse some ethical issues that have had a predominant role in decision making in response to the current COVID-19 pandemic but were absent or not addressed in the same ways in the 2016 guidance document. A pandemic results in a health crisis and social and political crises both nationally and (...) globally. The ethical implications of these global effects should be properly identified so that appropriate actions can be taken globally and not just in national isolation. Our analysis, which is a starting point to test the broader relevance of the 2016 WHO document that remains the only available guidance document applicable globally, concludes that the WHO guidance should be updated to provide reasoned and thoughtful comprehensive ethics advice for the sound management of the current and future pandemics. (shrink)

When we talk about Presocratic philosophy, we are speaking about the origins of Greek philosophy and Western rationality itself. But what exactly does it mean to talk about “Presocratic philosophy” in the first place? How did early Greek thinkers come to be considered collectively as Presocratic philosophers? In this brief book, André Laks provides a history of the influential idea of Presocratic philosophy, tracing its historical and philosophical significance and consequences, from its ancient antecedents to its full crystallization in (...) the modern period and its continuing effects today. Laks examines ancient Greek and Roman views about the birth of philosophy before turning to the eighteenth-century emergence of the term “Presocratics” and the debates about it that spanned the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He analyzes the intellectual circumstances that led to the idea of Presocratic philosophy—and what was and is at stake in the construction of the notion. The book closes by comparing two models of the history of philosophy—the phenomenological, represented by Hans-Georg Gadamer, and the rationalist, represented by Ernst Cassirer—and their implications for Presocratic philosophy, as well as other categories of philosophical history. Other figures discussed include Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Diogenes Laertius, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Nietzsche, Max Weber, and J.-P. Vernant. Challenging standard histories of Presocratic philosophy, the book calls for a reconsideration of the conventional story of early Greek philosophy and Western rationality. (shrink)

In this challenging study, André Gallois proposes and defends a thesis about the character of our knowledge of our own intentional states. Taking up issues at the centre of attention in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind and epistemology, he examines accounts of self-knowledge by such philosophers as Donald Davidson, Tyler Burge and Crispin Wright, and advances his own view that, without relying on observation, we are able justifiably to attribute to ourselves propositional attitudes, such as belief, that we consciously (...) hold. His study will be of wide interest to philosophers concerned with questions about self-knowledge. (shrink)

La Modernidad afirma la autonomía del mundo. Pero amigos y enemigos siguen operando con el prejuicio mitológico de un intervencionismo divino: si Dios quisiera, no habría mal y el mundo sería perfecto. El dilema de Epicuro, asimilable en una cultura de fe ambiental, se convierte en dificultad insuperable en la nueva «era crítica», y Kant —preso él mismo del prejuicio— proclama el fracaso de la teodicea. Fracaso para los creyentes, pues resulta increíble un dios que pudiendo no quiere o que (...) queriendo no puede. Fracaso para el ateísmo moderno que se apoya en el mal, pues atribuyéndolo a Dios niega la autonomía del mundo. Pero el fracaso kantiano afecta sólo a la teodicea pre-crítica en un mundo secular. El propósito del presente libro es «repensar el mal» tomando con toda consecuencia la secularidad. Partiendo del mundo, como si Dios no existiese, obliga a empezar desde abajo, respetando la autonomía de su funcionamiento. Entonces el problema —por primera vez en su historia— se estructura en tres pasos distintos. La ponerología muestra que la finitud, constitutivamente carencial y contradictoria, hace inevitable la aparición del mal. La pisteodicea, desde este resultado, señala que toda visión del mal es una respuesta, una «fe» que debe justificarse: sea náusea sartriana o esperanza religiosa. La teodicea es entonces la «pisteodicea» cristiana, que ahora puede romper el dilema, lograr la coherencia y presentar a Dios como el Anti-mal. Nace así una visión que distingue entre una «vía corta» (el fondo verdadero de la visión antigua, apoyada en la confianza) y una «vía larga» (con los tres pasos) de la teodicea; insiste en la «lógica del a-pesar-de» frente a cualquier finalismo del mal; responde a la dificultad del «demasiado mal» o posibilidad de salvación escatológica, y, finalmente, actualiza la comprensión de temas tan vivos como el pecado original, la providencia, el milagro, la oración de petición, el holocausto y el infierno. (shrink)

Relirais-je tout Platon, pour me permettre d'en parler? Je n'ai plus guère les yeux, ni la patience, ni peut-être le temps. J'ajoute que je n'en éprouve pas la nécessité. Je n'ai jamais prétendu tout savoir de Platon, je n'ai pas tout lu, les Lois, le Parménide aussi, me sont tombés des mains. Mais ce que j'ai lu je l'ai bien lu, comme on fait forcément quand on doit expliquer à d'autres, dont l'attention critique est impitoyable, et qu'on ne saurait payer (...) d'à peu près. Simples angles, pour entrer dans la citadelle par des accès qui parlent. Je n'ai jamais pratiqué un enseignement savant, j'ai essayé de pratiquer un enseignement stimulant. Â chacun ensuite de se trouver en lui-même, des raisons, des façons d'aller plus loin. Dans sa propre voie. Sinon, n'est-ce pas, l'acte d'écrire n'irait pas plus loin que ce qu'on a mis sur le papier. D'autres le font beaucoup, et sont définitifs ou rien. Je ne peux pas. J'ai trop longtemps été oral, et seulement oral. Trop longtemps j'ai eu en face de moi cette chose incomparable : des jeunes gens qui écoutent avec leurs yeux, des yeux qui écoutent."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This paper tackles the issue of the diversity of déjà experiences. According to the standard view in the neuropsychological literature, they should all be defined by means of a psychological criterion, by which they are experiences triggered by a perceived item and consist of a conscious clash between a first-order feeling of familiarity about the item and a second-order evaluation that assesses the first-order feeling as erroneous. This paper dismisses the standard view and contends there are two types of déjà (...) experiences, labeled déjà vu and déjà vécu respectively. But it also takes issue with the rare proponents of a distinct déjà vécu type. Contrary to their achievement view, it argues that recollection is not involved in déjà vécu experiences as an actual mental state or a component thereof. In our ability view, déjà vécu involves the feeling that one could recollect past occurrences of a currently lived episode of experience. (shrink)

Esta pesquisa se propõe a ser uma forma de análise da práxis cristã, tendo como ponto de partida a experiência místico-religiosa. A resposta de Friedrich Schleiermacher ao Iluminismo tem muito a nos beneficiar, principalmente se levarmos em consideração as críticas de Rudolf Otto. A compreensão do “sentimento de dependência” em Schleiermacher, que se torna em Otto “sentimento de criatura”, e a realidade da experiência de Deus que se conecta à práxis, nos fornecem um excelente ponto de partida para compreensão daquilo (...) que move as pessoas a uma vida de renúncia, servidão e comprometimento com valores e princípios do Evangelho de Jesus Cristo. Com base em uma pesquisa de campo, foi possível perceber que existe uma conexão entre a práxis cristã e a experiência religiosa. Quando há experiência religiosa, há ações cristãs executadas com naturalidade, com maior incidência do que quando não existe tal experiência. Podemos ter muito a perder se acaso deixarmos de considerar o aspecto experiencial da fé cristã com o sagrado. Em primeiro lugar, em nossas formulações teológicas, as quais podem, em maior ou menor grau, enfatizar em demasia aspectos antropocêntricos, deixando de lado o aspecto numinoso. Em segundo lugar, perderemos a oportunidade de influenciar a igreja a vivenciar uma prática espiritual real, que considere, com toda a relevância devida, a experiência de fé e não somente aspectos catequéticos. Por fim, perderemos a possibilidade de analisar a vida de fé, tendo como ponto de partida a experiência de Deus, que pode ter sido agente influenciador número um para uma vida de exemplo de práxis cristã genuína. (shrink)

This paper focusses on the Belgian constitutional and legal regulations which are clearly and relatively directly linked to minority protection as welt as their relevance for South Africa by way of analogy, taking into account South Africa's specific circumstances.Generally, what seems to be highly relevant for South Africa is the different kind of solutions in Belgium for its three categories of minorities as related to a different degree of territorial concentration. Going from an emphasis on territorial federalism, providing autonomy, for (...) the highly territorial concentrated linguistic groups, over the use of the relative concentrations of the ideological and philosophical groups in certain federated entities, to a combination of individual human rights and group rights without a territorial connection whatsoever for the religious groups which are highly dispersed throughout the country.An analogous differentiation ofseveral types ofminority protection could bedivised in South Africa as the genera! lack of territoria! concentration of thecountry's several population groups bas a different degree for the ethnic/linguistic groups as compared to the religious ones. (shrink)

Resumo: Reconstruiu-se a semiologia geral elaborada nos escritos inacabados e indiretos de Saussure, recolocando sua noção de sentido próxima à de Deleuze e explicando-a por meio deste. Defende-se que toda teoria baseada na noção de “diferença” precisa dar conta do processo de individuação e, junto disso, por meio da descrição de dois níveis de diferenciação. Demonstra-se que isto é realizado por ambos os autores, para além e mesmo junto de suas divergências. Assim, o artigo recoloca a teoria do valor de (...) Saussure na aurora de uma filosofia da diferença, mostrando que este inaugura e mesmo “repete” as teses que Deleuze explicitamente defende, nos anos 1960.: The paper reconstruct the general semiology elaborated in Saussure’s unfinished and indirect writings, replacing his notion of meaning next to that of Deleuze, and explaining it through the latter. We argue that any theory based on the notion of “difference” needs to account for the individuation process and, together, through the description of two levels of differentiation. We demonstrate that this is accomplished by both authors, beyond and even with their disagreements. Thus, the article puts Saussure’s theory of value on the dawn of a philosophy of difference, showing that it inaugurates and even repeats the theses that Deleuze explicitly defends in the 1960s. (shrink)

Forster and Sober present a solution to the curve-fitting problem based on Akaike's Theorem. Their analysis shows that the curve with the best epistemic credentials need not always be the curve that most closely fits the data. However, their solution does not, without further argument, avoid the two difficulties that are traditionally associated with the curve-fitting problem: that there are infinitely many equally good candidate-curves relative to any given set of data, and that these best candidates include curves with indefinitely (...) many bumps. (shrink)

Human beings respond to their immediate environments in a variety of ways, with emotion playing a cardinal role. In evolutionary theories, emotions are thought to prepare an organism for action. The interplay of acoustic environments, emotions, and evolutionary needs are currently subject to discussion in soundscape research. Universal definitions of emotion and its nature are currently missing, but there seems to be a fundamental consensus that emotions are internal, evanescent, mostly conscious, relational, manifest in different forms, and serve a purpose. (...) Research in this area is expanding, particularly in regards to the context-related, affective, and emotional processing of environmental stimuli. A number of studies present ways to determine the nature of emotions elicited by a soundscape and to measure these reliably. Yet the crucial question—which basic and complex emotions are triggered and how they relate to affective appraisal—has still not been conclusively answered. To help frame research on this topic, an overview of the theoretical background is presented that applies emotion theory to soundscape. Two latent fundamental dimensions are often found at the center of theoretical concepts of emotion: valence and arousal. These established universal dimensions can also be applied in the context of emotions that are elicited by soundscapes. Another, and perhaps more familiar, parallel is found between emotion and music. However, acoustic environments are more subtle than musical arrangements, rarely applying the compositional and artistic considerations frequently used in music. That said, the measurement of emotion in the context of soundscape studies is only of additional value if some fundamental inquiries are sufficiently answered: To what extent does the reporting act itself alter emotional responses? Are all important affective qualities consciously accessible and directly measurable by self-reports? How can emotion related to the environment be separated from affective predisposition? By means of a conceptual analysis of relevant soundscape publications, the consensus and conflicts on these fundamental questions in the light of soundscape theory are highlighted and needed research actions are framed. The overview closes with a proposed modification to an existing, standardized framework to include the meaning of emotion in the design of soundscapes. (shrink)

The book generalises earlier theories of belief change to cover all kinds of changes of sets by sets. The principal focus is still on changes of belief sets in response to new evidence, but the formal theory extends to all domains with a closure operation and a preference structure including, for example, systems of action. Contraction is the key notion; all other changes can be defined. Various new applications of the theory are outlined. A sentential version of contraction, subtraction, is (...) proposed as a formal counterpart to 'except'-locutions in natural language. Connections are emphasised with other areas at the interface between philosophical logic and artificial intelligence such as reasoning from default assumptions or from inconsistent premises. A relation of merge inference is proposed as a means of retrieving maximal but nontrivial information from inconsistent premises. Merge inference respects certain anti-Boolean intuitions while avoiding a revision of classical logic. (shrink)

European Journal of Political Theory, Volume 21, Issue 2, Page 368-389, April 2022. Epistemic impairment has been the decisive yardstick when excluding infants from political agency. One of the suggestions to bypass the epistemic requirement of political agency and to encourage the inclusion of infants in representative democracies is to resort to proxies or surrogates who share or advocate interests which may be coincidental with their interests. However, this solution is far from desirable, given that it privileges the political agency (...) of parents, guardians and trustees over other adult citizens. This article offers an alternative to this conceptual frame of reference by making a case for the political agency of infants. Firstly, it maintains that political agency can be understood in terms of the several facets involved in political representation. Secondly, it claims that the all-affected principle can be reformulated as an ‘infant-affected-interests principle’ in light of which infants are members of the class of the represented. Thirdly, it explores the ways through which this political agency can occur without having to resort to alternative conceptions of representation. The conclusion ascertains that infant enfranchisement is highly undesirable and that there are more viable forms to promote infant political agency, such as virtual representation, infant-beneficial principles of political action and ombudspersons for infants. (shrink)

In recent years the cognitive science community has witnessed the rise of a new, dynamical approach to cognition. This approach entails a framework in which cognition and behavior are taken to result from complex dynamical interactions between brain, body, and environment. The advent of the dynamical approach is grounded in a dissatisfaction with the classical computational view of cognition. A particularly strong claim has been that cognitive systems do not rely on internal representations and computations. Focusing on this claim, we (...) take as a starting point a question recently raised by Cliff and Noble: " if evolution did produce a design that used internal representations, how would we recognize it?" (Knowledge-based vision and simple visual machines, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, 352 , 1165-1175, 1997). We will argue that cognitive science lacks a proper operationalization of the notion of representation, and therefore is unable to fruitfully discuss whether a particular system has representations or not. A basic method to detect representations in a physical system, grounded in isomorphism, turns out to be quite unconstrained. We will look at a practical example of this problem by examining the debate on whether or not van Gelder's (What might cognition be, if not computation? Journal of Philosophy, 92 , 345-381, 1995) controversial example of the Watt Governor is representational. We will conclude that cognitive science, as of yet, has no empirically applicable means to answer Cliff and Noble's question unequivocally. This makes the recent representationalism vs. anti-representationalism debate a debate for the sake of appearance. (shrink)