Although context-processing deficits may be core features of schizophrenia, context remains a poorly defined concept. To test Phillips & Silverstein's model, we need to operationalize context more precisely. We offer several useful ways of framing context and discuss enhancing or facilitating schizophrenic patients' performance under different contextual situations. Furthermore, creativity may be a byproduct of cognitive uncoordination.

This paper argues that recent debates on egalitarian objections to immigration restrictions overlook a crucial, powerful normative principle that underpins objections to inequalities: any inequalities between morally equal persons – whether in goods, resources, welfare but also in powers, statuses, rights, and freedoms – that arise from morally arbitrary factors are pro tanto unjust. This principle of moral arbitrariness is fundamental to both luck and relational egalitarianism yet is often missing from debates that apply such theories to migration ethics. The (...) result of this omission is that certain arguments that purportedly reject luck egalitarian cases for open borders in fact fail since they fail to recognise the normative force of the principle of moral arbitrariness; yet, simultaneously, relational egalitarian cases for open borders are not fully successful since they fail to recognise that the principle of moral arbitrariness is required to distinguish immigration restrictions as unjust where other (relational) inequalities may not be. Hence, the overall argument of this paper is that the recognition of the principle of moral arbitrariness is essential for the success of both the luck and relational egalitarian cases, and thus a proper recognition of the full normative force and implications of this principle entails the egalitarian case for open borders indeed succeeds. (shrink)

Dieser Artikel konzentriert sich auf zwei der frühesten Schriften aus Leibniz' Pariser Zeit, die „Accessio ad Arithmeticam Infinitorum“ und die „De Minimo et Maximo. De corporibus et mentibus“ , und er beurteilt die Beziehung zwischen den in der AAI angegebenen mathematischen Ergebnissen und dem Wandel in Leibniz' Metaphysik, der in MM und in den damit in Verbindung stehenden Schriften und Briefen zum Ausdruck gebracht wird. Sowohl Leibniz' mathematische Ergebnisse als auch der Wandel seiner Haltung in der Metaphysik können als Resultat (...) einer stärkeren Verpflichtung gegenüber dem Euklidischen Axiom betrachtet werden, daß das Ganze größer ist als der Teil. Indem das Euklidische Axiom eine bedeutendere Rolle in Leibniz' Metaphysik und mathematischer Arbeit einnimmt, bewegt sich Leibniz von der Vorstellung der Zusammensetzung des Kontinuums aus unteilbaren Punkten zu einer Aufgliederung des Kontinuums in unvergleichbar kleine Teile, die in sich selbst kontinuierlich sind. Dieser Wandel führt Leibniz dazu, die Rolle der Identität und eines Kalküls von Teil und Ganzem zu betonen und sich in Richtung einer Vorstellung vom Unbestimmten als eines Unendlichen zu bewegen. (shrink)

This volume is a serious attempt to open up the subject of European philosophy of science to real thought, and provide the structural basis for the interdisciplinary development of its specialist fields, but also to provoke reflection on the idea of ‘European philosophy of science’. This efforts should foster a contemporaneous reflection on what might be meant by philosophy of science in Europe and European philosophy of science, and how in fact awareness of it could assist philosophers interpret and motivate (...) their research through a stronger collective identity. The overarching aim is to set the background for a collaborative project organising, systematising, and ultimately forging an identity for, European philosophy of science by creating research structures and developing research networks across Europe to promote its development. (shrink)

The first seven chapters of Doing without Concepts offer a perfectly reasonable view of current research on concepts. The last chapter, on which the central thesis of the book rests, provides little actual evidence that using the term impedes scientific progress. It thus fails to demonstrate that this term should be eliminated from the scientific vernacular.

Control measures, such as “lockdowns”, have been widely used to suppress the COVID-19 pandemic. Under some conditions, they prevent illness and save lives. But they also exact an economic toll. How should we balance the impact of such policies on individual lives and livelihoods (and other dimensions of concern) to determine which is best? A widely used method of policy evaluation, benefit–cost analysis (BCA), answers these questions by converting all the effects of a policy into monetary equivalents and then summing (...) them up. A different method, social welfare analysis, proceeds by determining the effects of a policy on individual wellbeing and then applying an aggregation formula to them to evaluate the overall effects of a policy. In this chapter, we survey these methods and argue that social welfare analysis has important advantages. One crucial advantage is that it enables ethical considerations relating to the impact of policies on individual wellbeing and its distribution to be incorporated into policy assessments in a transparent way. We illustrate this with a simple numerical model for evaluating pandemic policies that vary in terms of the stringency of the controls that they impose on individual behaviour, showing how the evaluation depends on the ethical significance accorded to their impact on the wellbeing of different age and income groups. (shrink)

There are a number of key data-centric questions that must be answered when developing classifiers for operator functional states. “Should a supervised or unsupervised learning approach be used? What degree of labeling and transformation must be performed on the data? What are the trade-offs between algorithm flexibility and model interpretability, as generally these features are at odds?” Here, we focus exclusively on the labeling of cognitive load data for supervised learning. We explored three methods of labeling cognitive states for three-state (...) classification. The first method labels states derived from a tertiary split of trial difficulty during a spatial memory task. The second method was more adaptive; it employed a mixed-effects stress–strain curve and estimated an individual’s performance asymptotes with respect to the same spatial memory task. The final method was similar to the second approach; however, it employed a mixed-effects Rasch model to estimate individual capacity limits within the context of item response theory for the spatial memory task. To assess the strength of each of these labeling approaches, we compared the area under the curve (AUC) for receiver operating curves (ROCs) from elastic net and random forest classifiers. We chose these classifiers based on a combination of interpretability, flexibility, and past modeling success. We tested these techniques across two groups of individuals and two tasks to test the effects of different labeling techniques on cross-person and cross-task transfer. Overall, we observed that the Rasch model labeling paired with a random forest classifier led to the best model fits and showed evidence of both cross-person and cross-task transfer. (shrink)

To speak of human rights in the twenty-first century is to speak of proportionality. Proportionality has been received into the constitutional doctrine of courts in continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Israel, South Africa, and the United States, as well as the jurisprudence of treaty-based legal systems such as the European Convention on Human Rights. Proportionality provides a common analytical framework for resolving the great moral and political questions confronting political communities. But behind the singular appeal to proportionality (...) lurks a range of different understandings. This volume brings together many of the world's leading constitutional theorists - proponents and critics of proportionality - to debate the merits of proportionality, the nature of rights, the practice of judicial review, and moral and legal reasoning. Their essays provide important new perspectives on this leading doctrine in human rights law. (shrink)

Achieving a high quality of life is dependent upon how individuals face adversity. Positive psychological interventions are well-suited to support coping efforts; however, experimental research is limited. The purpose of the current research was to examine whether different savoring interventions could increase important coping resources in response to a social-evaluative hassle. We completed an experimental mixed subject design study with a university student sample. All participants completed a hassle induction task and were then randomly assigned into different intervention groups. Positive (...) emotion ratings were collected at three points in time. Results revealed a significant time x intervention interaction effect, such that individuals in the savoring the moment intervention reported higher levels of positive emotions compared to individuals assigned to the true control group, guided imagery control group, and savoring through reminiscence intervention. Such findings represent a significant extension to savoring theory and offer support for savoring the moment exercises as a primary prevention strategy to bolster effective responses to social-evaluative hassles. (shrink)

Given the prevalence of social media, a nascent but important area of research is the effect of social media posting on one’s own self. It is possible that an individual’s social media posts may have predictive capacity, especially in relation to health behavior. Researchers have long used concepts from the theory of reasoned action to predict health behaviors. The theory does not account for social media, which may influence or predict health behaviors. The purpose of this study was to test (...) a model including Facebook alcohol displays and constructs from the theory of reasoned action to predict binge drinking. Incoming college freshmen from two schools (312 participants between 18 and 19 years old) were interviewed prior to (T1) and 1 year into college (T2), and their Facebook profiles were evaluated for displayed alcohol content. Path modeling was used to evaluate direct and indirect paths predicting binge drinking. Path analysis suggested that Facebook alcohol displays at T1 directly predict binge drinking at T2, while alcohol attitude both directly and indirectly predicts binge drinking. Based on these results, a preliminary model of social media presentation and action is discussed. (shrink)

Eusebius of Caesarea drew heavily on pagan philosophy in developing the first Christian political theology. His quotations from Plato’s most political work, the Laws, are so extensive that they are treated as a manuscript authority by modern editors. Yet Eusebius’s actual use of the Laws is oddly detached from Plato’s own political intentions in that work, adapting it to a model of philosophical kingship closer to the Republic and applied to the emperor Constantine. For Eusebius the Laws mainly shows the (...) agreement of Christian and pagan morality, while his political theory centers on the establishment and maintenance of a Christian empire under a Christian emperor who is a philosopher-king. His view represents one of the fundamental political options in ancient Christianity, one that influenced later Byzantine political theology, but was largely rejected in the west. (shrink)

The idea of the common good has been a signature feature of Catholic social teaching and so of modern Catholic engagement in public affairs. It has recently been suggested that the notion is now obsolete due to changes in the culture and politics of the West. In keeping with this suggestion, some argue that Catholics should abandon it in favor of an appeal based on lower intermediate goods in a manner more related to Augustine’s engagement with the largely pagan culture (...) of his time than to Aquinas’s categories tailored to an integrally Christian society. I argue that such a solution misreads aspects of the tradition and of the present political and cultural situation and I suggest some alternative grounds on which Catholic engagement with contemporary public life should proceed and that thinking again about the common good is a necessary part of such engagement. (shrink)

This paper suggests an alternative account of the political character of Plato’s political philosophy. After pointing toward some problems of the common developmental paradigm, which emphasizes discontinuities between Plato’s Socratic early writings, the mature utopianism of the Republic, and the late pessimism of the Laws, it proposes that Plato’s two large constructive works, the Republic and Laws, are related to two actual historical events in which Plato played a role, the trial of Socrates and Plato’s failed intervention in Sicilian politics. (...) On this view, the Republic is to the Apology of Socrates as the Laws is to the Seventh Letter. The Republic is an imaginative reconstruction of the sort of defense of philosophy under more favorable conditions than obtained in the actual trial; the Laws is an imaginative reconstruction of the sort of political reform that Plato advocated under more favorable conditions than obtained in Syracuse under Dionysius II. The paper suggests this as the basis of a unified interpretation of Plato’s political philosophy. (shrink)

Discusses three concepts crucial to an understanding of the nature of religion: anxiety, guilt, and freedom. The various essays examine these from the viewpoint of several different religious traditions, movements and thinkers. Contents: Editor's Preface. Donald Gard: A Personal Perspective. Part I. Guiltless Morality; The Family of Changing Woman: Nature and Women in Navaho Thought; The Sacraments as "Fear-provoking" and "Awe-inspiring" Rites in the Greek Fathers; The Doctrine of Karma; Two Concepts of Predestination in Current Islamic Thought. Part II. The (...) Spirit of Medieval Penitents; The Evolution of Freedom as Catholicity in Catholic Ethics; Agape and the Liberation Movements. Part III. Calvin's Idea of Freedom in the Ethics of Schleiermacher and Barth; Creativity and Freedom in the Thought of Martin Buber; The Liberating Visions of C. G. Jung; 'The World's Most Perverse Habit'; Appendix: Study Questions. (shrink)

This volume offers an extensive and illuminating inquiry into the philosophical justification of the modern state. The author’s main thesis is that the state can be justified but that its justification is not sufficient to vindicate many of its most characteristic claims. The author thus steers a course between libertarian and communitarian rejections of the state and the pretenses of states themselves.

The lead-off essay by Kenneth Minogue is an Oakeshottian reflection on the extent to which modern people have become passive spectators of action, detached from traditional loyalties and modes of identity and thus a kind of new Epicurean, shorn of the genuinely contemplative character of the originals. Eric Ormsby follows this with a judicious appraisal of the possibilities and perils for culture associated with the advent of the new information technology. Anthony Daniels provides a similarly sober account of the many (...) consequences and dilemmas of medical technology for the noble Hippocratic art. David Pryce-Jones’s essay recounts the antipolitical utopianism of the totalitarian ideologies that shadowed most of the twentieth century and worries about the potentially destructive utopian tendencies in the contemporary project of European integration. Keith Windschuttle surveys the range of ideologies currently deployed in the academy, most of which derive from vulgarizations of Nietzsche. Edward Said’s influential body of work comes in for particular scrutiny here. Mark Steyn contributes a discussion of the now all-too-familiar self-hatred of Western intellectuals with the blunt precision and wit so characteristic of his splendid newspaper columns. Martin Greenberg’s essay on Burke manages to educe in brief compass the understanding of freedom that is the animating heart of that exemplary statesman’s thought and practice. Diana Schaub makes a case for the importance of political philosophy to the practice of modern politics centered on the statesmanship of Lincoln. Robert Bork’s chapter on the “adversary judiciary” limns the extent to which judges have gone from being the guarantors of the rule of law to the most effective antagonists of traditional institutions and values. Finally, Roger Kimball fittingly recalls the original Ciceronian understanding of culture as the development of the mind analogous to the cultivation of the earth, and connects it with the celebrated program of criticism proposed by Matthew Arnold. (shrink)

This cross-sectional study of three generations of healthcare executives examines whether age cohort is the key determiner of ethical values. Responses to a national survey using the Rokeach Value Survey indicate that, contrary to widely reported beliefs that suggest otherwise, the age cohort groups in this sample exhibit virtually identical value preferences. The concept of career attraction is introduced to explain the similarities in value preference, and it is further suggested that generational differences may be nullified by the homogeneous demands (...) of organizational life in a healthcare setting. Implications for ethical decisionmaking are discussed.Does age cohort affiliation influence healthcare executive values and consequent ethical judgements? The greater body of literature clearly suggests the answer is yes, yet an empirical assessment of the question has never before been reported. The attention given this issue to date has been focused on the generational differences between the three age cohorts in the workplace today: Matures, Boomers, and Generation Xers (1). Defined as a group of people who share a given historical or socially structured life experience, an age cohort is believed to have a relatively stable influence over the decisionmaking of individuals, and serves to distinguish one generation from another (2)(3)(4). Generation X, or GenXers as they are commonly referred to, are comprised of individuals born between 1961 and 1981. Baby Boomers, or Boomers as they are popularly known, are those born between 1943 and 1960. Matures is the name given to characterize the group of people born between born 1925 and 1942. [Birth dates defining generational cohorts vary slightly among multiple sources. The dates used in this study are from Strauss and Howe (1991), though the nomenclature is not.]. (shrink)

This dissertation investigates the initial reception of the Bhagavad Gita in German intellectual circles, focusing in particular on the ways that the German Romantics who translated and anthologized the text constituted it as an object of European knowledge. By examining the intellectual debates and textual practices at play in early nineteenth century representations of Indian religious culture, this project contributes to the contemporary debate about Orientalism, which often lacks focus because of inattention to historical context. In addition, by bringing this (...) under-investigated topic to light, the dissertation adds an important chapter to the history of the study of religion and offers historical perspective on the comparative philosophy of religion. ;The works of Johann Gottfried Herder, Friedrich Schlegel, August Wilhelm Schlegel, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and G. W. F. Hegel provide the matrix of this project. With these writings a German discourse on India took shape. Local intellectual preoccupations guided the Romantic presentation of the Gita, permeated its translations, and were thus enlisted to accommodate its difference. These preoccupations were thematized first in Herder's experimentations and then gained clarity in the work of the Schlegel brothers. Later exchanges between von Humboldt and Hegel illustrate the way that these preoccupations were reinterpreted after early Romantic enthusiasm had dissipated and conventions of academic discipline had evolved. ;The dissertation concludes by asserting that Romanticism leaves a legacy wherein broad cultural "myths" can dominate the "logos" of scholarship on India and Hindu religious sources. Reflection on the history of cross-cultural inquiry draws attention to such "myths" and thus enhances the self-consciousness of future scholarship. (shrink)

Abstract:Lately, the field of business ethics has begun to take an intense interest in the relationship between religion and business ethics. Various books and articles are being produced at an increasing rate using theoretical and qualitative research methods. However, to date, almost no data exist quantifying relationships between religion and business ethics. This paper begins to provide such data by testing the relationships between religious upbringing, religious practice, Christian beliefs, and attitudes toward corporate social responsibility. Analysis of our sample demonstrates (...) that religious practice and Christian beliefs have a weak relationship to attitudes toward corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

F. H. Bradley was the foremost philosopher of the British Idealist school, which came to prominence in the second half of the nineteenth century. Bradley, who was a life fellow of Merton College, Oxford, was influenced by Hegel, and also reacted against utilitarianism. He was recognised during his lifetime as one of the greatest intellectuals of his generation and was the first philosopher to receive the Order of Merit, in 1924. His work is considered to have been important (...) to the formation of analytic philosophy. In metaphysics, he rejected pluralism and realism, and believed that English philosophy needed to deal systematically with first principles. This work, first published in 1893, is divided into two parts: 'Appearance' deals with exposing the contradictions that Bradley believed are hidden in our everyday conceptions of the world; and in 'Reality', he builds his positive account of reality and considers possible objections to it. (shrink)

When making decisions, people naturally face uncertainty about the potential consequences of their actions due in part to limits in their capacity to represent, evaluate or deliberate. Nonetheless, they aim to make the best decisions possible. In Decision Theory with a Human Face, Richard Bradley develops new theories of agency and rational decision-making, offering guidance on how 'real' agents who are aware of their bounds should represent the uncertainty they face, how they should revise their opinions as a result (...) of experience and how they should make decisions when lacking full awareness of, or precise opinions on relevant contingencies. He engages with the strengths and flaws of Bayesian reasoning, and presents clear and comprehensive explorations of key issues in decision theory, from belief and desire to semantics and learning. His book draws on philosophy, economics, decision science and psychology, and will appeal to readers in all of these disciplines. (shrink)

Well-Being and Death addresses philosophical questions about death and the good life: what makes a life go well? Is death bad for the one who dies? How is this possible if we go out of existence when we die? Is it worse to die as an infant or as a young adult? Is it bad for animals and fetuses to die? Can the dead be harmed? Is there any way to make death less bad for us? Ben Bradley defends (...) the following views: pleasure, rather than achievement or the satisfaction of desire, is what makes life go well; death is generally bad for its victim, in virtue of depriving the victim of more of a good life; death is bad for its victim at times after death, in particular at all those times at which the victim would have been living well; death is worse the earlier it occurs, and hence it is worse to die as an infant than as an adult; death is usually bad for animals and fetuses, in just the same way it is bad for adult humans; things that happen after someone has died cannot harm that person; the only sensible way to make death less bad is to live so long that no more good life is possible. (shrink)

What difference does the philosophical revolution of Deleuze and Guattari make to our understanding the early Christianity? In honour of the fortieth anniversary of publication of A Thousand Plateaus, this article argues that the discipline of Christian origins is currently premised on a historically condemned mode of subjectivity, that of subject/object metaphysics. The philosophical processes found in A Thousand Plateaus are particularly apposite to the current dilemma of Christian origins: as a rhizome-book consisting of plateaus, machines, singularities and non-representational concepts, (...) this book models new modes of thinking that can help the discipline rejuvenate itself and accomplish new tasks which are presently beyond its reach – for Deleuzian philosophy privileges the virtual over the actual, becoming over being, machinic transformations over static structures, and semiotics over linguistics. (shrink)