Despite the prominence of person‐centred care (PCC) in nursing, there is no general agreement on the assumptions and the meaning of PCC. We sympathize with the work of others who rethink PCC towards relational, embedded, and temporal selfhood rather than individual personhood. Our perspective addresses criticism of humanist assumptions in PCC using critical posthumanism as a diffraction from dominant values We highlight the problematic realities that might be produced in healthcare, leading to some people being more likely to be disenfranchised (...) from healthcare than others. We point to the colonial, homo‐ and transphobic, racist, ableist, and ageist consequences of humanist traditions that have influenced the development of PCC. We describe the deep rooted conditions that structurally uphold inequality and undermine nursing practice that PCC reproduces. We advocate for the self‐determination of patients and emphasize that we support the fundamental mechanisms of PCC enabling patients' choice; however, without critical introspection, these are limited to a portion of humans. Last, we present limitations of our perspective based on our white*‐cisheteropatriarchy** positionality. We point to the fact that any reimagining of models such as PCC should be carefully done by listening, following, and ceding power to people with diversity dimensions*** and the lived experience or expertise that exists from diverse perspectives. We point towards Black, queer feminism, and critical disabilities studies to contextualize our point of critique with humanism and PCC to amplify equity for all people and communities. Theory and philosophy are useful to understand restrictive factors in healthcare delivery and to inform systematic strategies to improve the quality of care so as not to perpetuate the oppression of groups of people with diversity dimensions. *We purposely capitalize Black and use lower case for white to decentre whiteness and as an intentional act of antiracism (see White Homework a podcast series by Tori W. Douglas). **Cisheteropatriarchy describes people with intersecting identities of dominant social groups; cisgender is the gender identity that aligns with the gender you were assigned at birth, hetero means heterosexual, and patriarchy refers to structural systems of power based on maleness where women are often excluded and hold less power. ***With diversity dimensions, we refer to subjective lived experience and material realities of people that exist outside the ‘dominant minorities' of white‐cisheteropatriarchy, meaning groups of people in society who historically and currently hold more power and through this, structurally dominate the norms and possibilities of living for other people. (shrink)

In this essay I set and explore Buch-Hansen and Nielsen’s Critical Realism: Basics and Beyond. I then move on to discuss arising issues relevant to contemporary critical realism, including time, ca...

This investigation is motivated by the lack of scholarship examining the content of what firms are communicating to various stakeholders about their commitment to socially responsible behaviors. To address this query, a qualitative study of the legal, ethical and moral statements available on the websites of Forbes Magazine''s top 50 U.S. and top 50 multinational firms of non-U.S. origin were analyzed within the context of stakeholder theory. The results are presented thematically, and the close provides implications for social responsibility among (...) managers of global organizations as well as researchers interested in business ethics. (shrink)

Ethicists, policy-makers, and the general public have questioned whether artificial entities such as robots warrant rights or other forms of moral consideration. There is little synthesis of the research on this topic so far. We identify 294 relevant research or discussion items in our literature review of this topic. There is widespread agreement among scholars that some artificial entities could warrant moral consideration in the future, if not also the present. The reasoning varies, such as concern for the effects on (...) artificial entities and concern for the effects on human society. Beyond the conventional consequentialist, deontological, and virtue ethicist ethical frameworks, some scholars encourage “information ethics” and “social-relational” approaches, though there are opportunities for more in-depth ethical research on the nuances of moral consideration of artificial entities. There is limited relevant empirical data collection, primarily in a few psychological studies on current moral and social attitudes of humans towards robots and other artificial entities. This suggests an important gap for psychological, sociological, economic, and organizational research on how artificial entities will be integrated into society and the factors that will determine how the interests of artificial entities are considered. (shrink)

From the 1970s onwards, Feyerabend argues against the freedom of science. This will seem strange to some, as his epistemological anarchism is often taken to suggest that scientists should be free of even the most basic and obvious norms of science. His argument against the freedom of science is heavily influenced by his case study of the interference of Chinese communists in mainland China during the 1950s wherein the government forced local universities to continue researching traditional Chinese medicine rather than (...) Western medicine. Feyerabend claims this move was justifiable and, eventually, vindicated by the resulting research which was beneficial for locals and the West at large. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview and analysis on Feyerabend’s views on the freedom of science and his social commentary on US science funding policy that follows therefrom. This proves to be exceedingly difficult because Feyerabend’s writings on the subject are filled with gaps, unnoticed tensions, and cognitive dissonance. Still, I think Feyerabend’s scattered insights and the contradictions that emerge lead to an interesting microcosm of the issues contained in the freedom of science debate. (shrink)

This article discusses the role that algorithmic thinking and management play in health care and the kind of exclusions this might create. We argue that evidence‐based medicine relies on research and data to create pathways for patient journeys. Coupled with data‐based algorithmic prediction tools in health care, they establish what could be called health care algorithmics—a mode of management of healthcare that produces forms of algorithmic governmentality. Relying on a critical posthumanist perspective, we show how healthcare algorithmics is contingent on (...) the way authority over bodies is produced and how predictive health care algorithms can reproduce inequalities of the worlds from which they are made, centreing possible futures on existing normativities regulated through algorithmic biopower. In contrast to that, we explore posthuman speculative ethics as a way to challenge understanding of ‘ethics’ and ‘care’ in healthcare algorithmics. We suggest some possible avenues towards working speculative ethics into health care while still being critically attentive to algorithmic modes of management and prediction in health care. (shrink)

This paper uses the strengthened liar paradox as a springboard to illuminate two more general topics: i) the negation operator and the speech act of denial among speakers of English and ii) some ways the potential for acceptable language change is constrained by linguistic meaning. The general and special problems interact in reciprocally illuminating ways. The ultimate objective of the paper is, however, less to solve certain problems than to create others, by illustrating how the issues that form the topic (...) of this paper are more intricate than previously realised, and that they are related in delicate and somewhat surprising ways. (shrink)

Social scientific evidence suggests that labor migration can increase resilience to climate change. For that reason, some have recently advocated using labor migration policy as a tool for climate adaptation. This paper engages with the normative question of whether, and under what conditions, states may permissibly use labor migration policy as a tool for climate adaptation. I argue that states may use labor migration policy as a tool for climate adaptation and may even have a duty to do so, subject (...) to two moral constraints. First, states must also provide acceptable alternative options for adaptation so that the vulnerable are not forced to sacrifice their morally important interests in being able to remain where they are. Second, states may not impose restrictive terms on labor migrants to make accepting greater numbers less costly for themselves because doing so unfairly shifts the costs of adaptation onto the most vulnerable. (shrink)

Mathematical investigation, when done well, can confer understanding. This bare observation shouldn’t be controversial; where obstacles appear is rather in the effort to engage this observation with epistemology. The complexity of the issue of course precludes addressing it tout court in one paper, and I’ll just be laying some early foundations here. To this end I’ll narrow the field in two ways. First, I’ll address a specific account of explanation and understanding that applies naturally to mathematical reasoning: the view proposed (...) by Philip Kitcher and Michael Friedman of explanation or understanding as involving the unification of theories that had antecedently appeared heterogeneous. For the second narrowing, I’ll take up one specific feature (among many) of theories and their basic concepts that is sometimes taken to make the theories and concepts preferred: in some fields, for some problems, what is counted as understanding a problem may involve finding a way to represent the problem so that it (or some aspect of it) can be visualized. The final section develops a case study which exemplifies the way that this consideration – the potential for visualizability – can rationally inform decisions as to what the proper framework and axioms should be. The discussion of unification (in sections 3 and 4) leads to a mathematical analogue of Goodman’s problem of identifying a principled basis for distinguishing grue and green. Just as there is a philosophical issue about how we arrive at the predicates we should use when making empirical predictions, so too there is an issue about what properties best support many kinds of mathematical reasoning that are especially valuable to us. The issue becomes pressing via an examination of some physical and mathematical cases that make it seem unlikely that treatments of unification can be as straightforward as the philosophical literature has hoped. Though unification accounts have a grain of truth (since a phenomenon (or cluster of phenomena) called “unification” is in fact important in many cases) we are far from an analysis of what “unification” is.. (shrink)

This study builds upon the top management literature to predict and test antecedents to firms’ engagement in corruption. Building on a survey of 341 executives in India, we find that if executives have social ties with government officials, their firms are more likely to engage in corruption. Further, these executives are likely to rationalize engaging in corruption as a necessity for being competitive. The results collectively illustrate the role that executives’ social ties and perceptions have in shaping illegal actions of (...) their respective firms. (shrink)

Although business and society scholars have sought to demonstrate that corporate social performance (CSP) leads to corporate financial performance (CFP), a complete model of the pathway from CSP to CFP has not been substantiated. One suggestion is that certain indicators of CSP are noticed by stakeholders, who then act in ways that ultimately affect the firm's CFP. The present study focused on the first step in this path: identifying the factors that initially lead a stakeholder group to target a particular (...) firm. Existing theory from the literature on the environmental movement, stakeholder theory, and CSP fostered the development of eight propositions regarding corporate environmental performance. Case studies of five environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) are used to address the propositions. The case studies also supply additional insight into ENGO targeting of particular firms, unrelated to the propositions, thereby facilitating the development of a theoretical model. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper contends that rationality is more properly evaluated as a property of an organization’s relationships with its stakeholders than of the organization itself. We predicate our approach on the observation that stakeholders can hold goals quite distinct from those of owners and top managers, and these too can be rationally pursued. We build upon stakeholder theory and Weber’s classic distinction betweenwertrationalitatandzweckrationalitat, adding to them the “new institutionalist” concept of the organization field (1983, 1991). Stakeholders employ a variety of direct (...) and indirect mechanisms to rationalize relations with the firm. We discuss four: internal subunits, legislated stakeholder participation, legislated access to information, and direct stakeholder activism. These developments are blurring the distinction between the environment and the organization by importing the values and goals of external stakeholders into the internal organization. They are also precipitating a more structured set of relationships among the actors who comprise the field. To the extent that thezweckrationalitatvalues of managers and owners as well as thewertrationalitatconcerns of stakeholders are met, the firm is more rational. (shrink)

This collection addresses whether ethicists, like authorities in other fields, can speak as experts in their subject matter. Though ethics consultation is a growing practice in medical contexts, there remain difficult questions about the role of ethicists in professional decision-making. Contributors examine the nature and plausibility of moral expertise, the relationship between character and expertise, the nature and limits of moral authority, how one might become a moral expert, and the trustworthiness of moral testimony. This volume engages with the growing (...) literature in these debates and offers new perspectives from both academics and practitioners. The readings will be of particular interest to bioethicists, clinicians, ethics committees, and students of social epistemology. These new essays promise to advance discussions in the professionalization and accreditation of ethics consultation. (shrink)

Bioinformatics – the so-called shotgun marriage between biology and computer science – is an interdiscipline. Despite interdisciplinarity being seen as a virtue, for having the capacity to solve complex problems and foster innovation, it has the potential to place projects and people in anomalous categories. For example, valorised ‘outputs’ in academia are often defined and rewarded by discipline. Bioinformatics, as an interdisciplinary bricolage, incorporates experts from various disciplinary cultures with their own distinct ways of working. Perceived problems of interdisciplinarity include (...) difficulties of making explicit knowledge that is practical, theoretical, or cognitive. But successful interdisciplinary research also depends on an understanding of disciplinary cultures and value systems, often only tacitly understood by members of the communities in question. In bioinformatics, the ‘parent’ disciplines have different value systems; for example, what is considered worthwhile research by computer scientists can be thought of as trivial by biologists, and vice versa. This paper concentrates on the problems of reward and recognition described by scientists working in academic bioinformatics in the United Kingdom. We highlight problems that are a consequence of its cross-cultural make-up, recognising that the mismatches in knowledge in this borderland take place not just at the level of the practical, theoretical, or epistemological, but also at the cultural level too. The trend in big, interdisciplinary science is towards multiple authors on a single paper; in bioinformatics this has created hybrid or fractional scientists who find they are being positioned not just in-between established disciplines but also in-between as middle authors or, worse still, left off papers altogether. (shrink)

This chapter discusses whether Quasi-Realism gains any advantage over Robust Realism with respect to the problem of explaining supervenience. The chapter starts with a summary of what the supervenience problem is and recounts the history of expressivist thinking about supervenience: the supervenience problem was a challenge raised by expressivist Robust Realists, with the idea that expressivism had an excellent explanation of the phenomenon and realism had none. The chapter then contrasts Quasi-Realism and Robust Realism in order to bring the big (...) problem out in the open, namely that Quasi-Realists have not provided any explanation at all for the phenomenon of supervenience. In this respect they are, it appears, in the same boat as Robust Realists. The chapter maps out the possible paths for Quasi-Realists to travel in pursuit of Quasi-Explananda, and gives some reasons to be optimistic. The chapter ends with a suggestive analogy and a synopsis of the state of the dialectic. (shrink)

With the development of the Healthcare Ethics Consultant Certification offered through the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, the practice of clinical ethics has taken a decisive step into professionalization. Like other clinical consulting services that have trod this path—chaplaincy, genetic counseling, social work, case management, and so on1—clinical ethics started with academic and fellowship training programs and has identified a set of standards of practice....

Prior research shows that reasoners' confidence is poorly calibrated (Shynkaruk & Thompson, 2006). The goal of the current experiment was to increase calibration in syllogistic reasoning by training reasoners on (a) the concept of logical necessity and (b) the idea that more than one representation of the premises may be possible. Training improved accuracy and was also effective in remedying some systematic misunderstandings about the task: those in the training condition were better at estimating their overall performance than those who (...) were untrained. However, training was less successful in helping reasoners to discriminate which items are most likely to cause them difficulties. In addition we explored other variables that may affect confidence and accuracy, such as the number of models required to represent the problem and whether or not the presented conclusion was necessitated by the premises, possible given the premises, or impossible given the premises. These variables had systematically different relationships to confidence and accuracy. Thus, we propose that confidence in reasoning judgements is analogous to confidence in memory retrievals, in that they are inferentially derived from cues that are not diagnostic in terms of accuracy. (shrink)

This paper addresses the phenomenon of climate-induced displacement. I argue that there is scope for an account of asylum as compensation owed to those displaced by the impacts of climate change which needs only to appeal to minimal normative commitments about the requirements of global justice. I demonstrate the possibility of such an approach through an examination of the work of David Miller. Miller is taken as an exemplar of a broadly ‘international libertarian’ approach to global justice, and his work (...) is a useful vehicle for this project because he has an established view about both responsibility for climate change and about the state’s right to exclude would-be immigrants. In the course of the argument, I set out the relevant aspects of Miller’s views, reconstruct an account of responsibility for the harms faced by climate migrants which is consistent with Miller’s views, and demonstrate why such an account yields an obligation to provide asylum as a form of compensation to ‘climate migrants.’. (shrink)

Recent science funding policy scholars and practitioners have advocated for the use of lotteries, or elements of random chance, as supplementations of traditional peer review for evaluating grant applications. One of the primary motivations for lotteries is their purported openness to innovative research. The purpose of this paper is to argue that current proponents of funding science by lottery overestimate the viability of peer review and thus unduly restrict the scope of lotteries in science funding practice. I further show how (...) this analysis suggests a different way of introducing lotteries into science funding policy. (shrink)

In this work, Jamie Mayerfeld undertakes a careful inquiry into the meaning and moral significance of suffering. Understanding suffering in hedonistic terms as an affliction of feeling, he claims that it is an objective psychological condition, amenable to measurement and interpersonal comparison, although its accurate assessment is never easy. Mayerfeld goes on to examine the content of the duty to prevent suffering and the weight it has relative to other moral considerations. He argues that the prevention of suffering is (...) morally more important than the promotion of happiness, and that the duty to relieve suffering is much stronger than most of us acknowledge. (shrink)

The past thirty years have seen a surge of empirical research into political decision making and the influence of framing effects — the phenomenon that occurs when different but equivalent presentations of a decision problem elicit different judgments or preferences. During the same period, political philosophers have become increasingly interested in democratic theory, particularly in deliberative theories of democracy. Unfortunately, the empirical and philosophical studies of democracy have largely proceeded in isolation from each other. As a result, philosophical treatments of (...) democracy have overlooked recent developments in psychology, while the empirical study of framing effects has ignored much contemporary work in political philosophy. In Framing Democracy, Jamie Terence Kelly bridges this divide by explaining the relevance of framing effects for normative theories of democracy. -/- Employing a behavioral approach, Kelly argues for rejecting the rational actor model of decision making and replacing it with an understanding of choice imported from psychology and social science. After surveying the wide array of theories that go under the name of democratic theory, he argues that a behavioral approach enables a focus on three important concerns: moral reasons for endorsing democracy, feasibility considerations governing particular theories, and implications for institutional design. Finally, Kelly assesses a number of methods for addressing framing effects, including proposals to increase the amount of political speech, mechanisms designed to insulate democratic outcomes from flawed decision making, and programs of public education. -/- The first book to develop a behavioral theory of democracy, Framing Democracy has important insights for democratic theory, the social scientific understanding of political decision making, economics, and legal theory. (shrink)

There has been a great deal of skepticism towards the value of the realism/anti-realism debate. More specifically, many have argued that plausible formulations of realism and anti-realism do not differ substantially in any way. In this paper, I argue against this trend by demonstrating how a hypothetical resolution of the debate, through deeper engagement with the historical record, has important implications for our criterion of theory pursuit and science policy. I do this by revisiting Arthur Fine’s ‘small handful’ argument for (...) realism and show how the debate centers on whether continuity should be an indicator for the future fruitfulness of a theory. I then demonstrate how these debates work in practice by considering the case of the Human Brain Project. I close by considering some potential practical considerations of formulating meta-inductions. By doing this, I contribute three insights to the current debate: 1) demonstrate how the realism/anti-realism debate is a substantive debate, 2) connect debates about realism/anti-realism to debates about theory choice and pursuit, and 3) show the practical significance of meta-inductions. (shrink)

There has been a resurgence between two closely related discussions concerning modern science funding policy. The first revolves around the coherence and usefulness of the distinction between basic and applied science and the second concerns whether science should be free to pursue research according to its own internal standards or pursue socially responsible research agendas that are held accountable to moral or political standards. In this paper, I argue that the distinction between basic and applied science, and the concomitant debate (...) about freedom and social responsibility, require revision. I contend that the distinction can only be maintained in cases of _urgent science_. I go on to elucidate the notion of urgent science using a case study from research of the climate refugee crisis. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe Centre for Social Ontology working group project has been exploring the concept of a Morphogenic Society since 2013. The project is now drawing to a close. One of the arising issues from the project has been whether such a society can be and is liable to be one of human flourishing. In this short paper, I explore one possible aspect of the concept of a Morphogenic Society.1 A Morphogenic Society may involve issues of ‘contingent necessity’. Contingent necessity may provide (...) one way to think about human flourishing, and this in turn may highlight the potential significance of the concept of a Morphogenic Society as a resource in positional argument for human flourishing. (shrink)

This article diagnoses a novel problem with gentrification: that it can hinder valuable forms of everyday democratic communication. In order to make this argument, I develop a democratic interpretation of Iris Marion Young's ‘ideal of city life’, according to which social differentiation is valuable because of the epistemic role that it plays in the production and circulation of diverse social perspectives. I then leverage that ideal to examine two kinds of spatial and demographic changes associated with gentrification: community disintegration in (...) enclaves and homogenisation in public spaces. I argue that community disintegration in enclaves can make the production of social perspectives within disadvantaged communities more difficult. I then argue that homogenisation in public spaces can undermine the role of such spaces as sites of democratic performance for the wider circulation of social perspectives in the public sphere. Finally, I reflect on the reach of my argument for broader judgements about the permissibility of policies that foster or permit gentrification. (shrink)

The world is abuzz with experts who can help us in domains where we understand too little to help ourselves. But sometimes experts in one domain carry their privileged status into domains outside their specialization, where they give advice or otherwise presume to speak authoritatively. Ballantyne calls these boundary crossings “epistemic trespassing” and argues that they often violate epistemic norms. In the few cases where traveling in other domains is permissible, Ballantyne suggests there should be regulative checks for the experts (...) who are crossing domain boundaries. I argue that boundary crossing is warranted more often than Ballantyne allows. And while Ballantyne argues that boundary crossing is prima facie epistemically problematic, I contend that many cases of boundary crossing are not properly instances of “trespassing,” and, therefore, raise no prima facie epistemic concerns. I further argue that identifying cases of what I call “epistemic neighborliness” bolsters Ballantyne’s project, making it easier for novices and other experts to identify epistemic trespassing along with its epistemic problems. (shrink)

Female leaders continue to face bias in the workplace compared to male leaders. When employees are evaluated differently because of who they are rather than how they perform, an ethical dilemma arises for leaders and organizations. Thus, bridging role congruity and social identity leadership theories, we propose that gender biases in leadership evaluations can be overcome by manipulating diversity at the team level. Across two multiple-source, multiple-wave, and randomized field experiments, we test whether team gender composition restores gender equity in (...) leadership evaluations. In Study 1, we find that male leaders are rated as more prototypical in male-dominated groups, an advantage that is eliminated in gender-balanced groups. In Study 2, we replicate and extend this finding by showing that leader gender and team gender composition interact to predict trust in the leader via perceptions of leader prototypicality. The results show causal support for the social identity model of organizational leadership and a boundary condition of role congruity theory. Beyond moral arguments of fairness, our findings also show how, in the case of gender, team diversity can create a more level playing field for leaders. Finally, we outline the implications of our results for leaders, organizations, business ethics, and society. (shrink)

The most public-facing forms of contemporary Darwinism happily promote its worldview ambitions. Popular works, by the likes of Richard Dawkins, deflect associations with eugenics and social Darwinism, but also extend the reach of Darwinism beyond biology into social policy, politics, and ethics. Critics of the enterprise fall into two categories. Advocates of Intelligent Design and secular philosophers (like Mary Midgley and Thomas Nagel) recognise it as a worldview and argue against its implications. Scholars in the rhetoric of science or science (...) communication, however, typically take the view that Darwinism isn't a worldview, but a scientific theory, which has been improperly embellished by some; they uphold the distinction between is and ought and argue that science is restricted to the former. This prompts an is–ought problem on another level. I catalogue the ways in which Darwinism plainly is a worldview and why commentators' beliefs that it ought not to be distorts their analysis. Hence, it is their own worldview that precludes them from accepting Darwinism's worldview implications. (shrink)

Digital technology is playing an increasingly visible role in the organisation of many people’s work—as well as large parts of their lives more broadly. The concerns of emancipatory technology studies, or other critical accounts of technology, are often focused on finding alternative uses of technology. In many workplace contexts—from call centres to platform work—the imperatives of capital are deeply written into these technologies. Yet at the same time, many capitalist technologies are playing a key role facilitating emerging workers’ struggles. For (...) example, in the case study examined here, Deliveroo drivers rely on communication technologies like WhatsApp to organise against algorithmic management. Drawing on an ongoing workers’ inquiry, this paper seeks to consider what a workerist approach to digital technology can add to these debates. The paper outlines the challenges and opportunities for a “digital workers’ inquiry,” considering how this approach combines research with organising. The argument is divided into two main parts: first, the need for inquiries in digital work and the importance of these and second, how the process of inquiry and co-research (and the methods these involve) can be adapted and refined with digital technology. By starting the critique of technology from the workplace, this paper proposes a workerist account of how technologies can be destroyed or re-appropriated, starting from a reading of workers’ struggle. (shrink)

It is widely believed that some puzzling and provocative remarks that Frege makes in his late writings indicate he rejected independence arguments in geometry, particularly arguments for the independence of the parallels axiom. I show that this is mistaken: Frege distinguished two approaches to independence arguments and his puzzling remarks apply only to one of them. Not only did Frege not reject independence arguments across the board, but also he had an interesting positive proposal about the logical structure of correct (...) independence arguments, deriving from the geometrical principle of duality and the associated idea of substitution invariance. The discussion also serves as a useful focal point for independently interesting details of Frege's mathematical environment. This feeds into a currently active scholarly debate because Frege's supposed attitude to independence arguments has been taken to support a widely accepted thesis (proposed by Ricketts among others) concerning Frege's attitude toward metatheory in general. I show that this thesis gains no support from Frege's puzzling remarks about independence arguments. (shrink)

The aims of this study were to examine the effectiveness of a range of smartphone apps for managing symptoms of anxiety and depression and to assess the utility of a single-case research design for enhancing the evidence base for this mode of treatment delivery. The study was serendipitously impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed for effectiveness to be additionally observed in the context of significant community distress. A pilot study was initially conducted using theSuperBetter app to evaluate the proposed (...) methodology, which proved successful with the four finishing participants. In the main study, 39 participants commenced, with 29 finishing the intervention phase and completing post-intervention measures. At 6-month follow-up, a further three participants could not be contacted. This study used a digitally enhanced, multiple baseline across-individuals single-case research design. Participants were randomly assigned to the following apps:SuperBetter,Smiling Mind,MoodMission,MindShift, andDestressify. Symptomatology and life functioning were measured at five different time points: pre-baseline/screening, baseline, intervention, 3-week post-intervention, and 6-month follow-up. Detailed individual perceptions and subjective ratings of the apps were also obtained from participants following the study’s completion. Data were analyzed using visual inspection, time-series analysis, and methods of statistical and clinical significance. Positive results were observed for all apps. Overall, more favorable outcomes were achieved by younger participants, those concurrently undertaking psychotherapy and/or psychotropic medication, those with anxiety and mixed anxiety and depression rather than stand-alone depression, and those with a shorter history of mental illness. Outcomes were generally maintained at 6-month follow-up. It was concluded that a diverse range of evidence-based therapies offered via apps can be effective in managing mental health and improving life functioning even during times of significant global unrest and, like all psychotherapies, are influenced by client features. Additionally, this single-case research design is a low-cost/high value means of assessing the effectiveness of mental health apps.Clinical Trial Registration: The study is registered with the Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, which is a primary registry in the World Health Organization Registry Network, registration number ACTRN12619001302145p. (shrink)

A cluster of recent papers on Frege have urged variations on the theme that Frege’s conception of logic is in some crucial way incompatible with ‘metatheoretic’ investigation. From this observation, significant consequences for our interpretation of Frege’s understanding of his enterprise are taken to follow. This chapter aims to critically examine this view, and to isolate what I take to be the core of truth in it. However, I will also argue that once we have isolated the defensible kernel, the (...) sense in which Frege was committed to rejecting ‘metatheory’ is too narrow and uninteresting to support the con-. (shrink)

For centuries philosophers have disputed whether the sky really is blue or whether this ;blueness ; is only in the eye of the beholder. But perhaps there is a better way to think about perception . . . In this controversial and challenging book, Jamie Carnie introduces a radical new perspective on the way our senses operate, setting out to save our instinctive belief that colors, sounds, flavors, textures, and scents are features of the ;real ; world and not (...) just mental constructs that disappear the moment we look away. A minimal model of the mind as a virtual machine helps us formulate Carnie's universe. (shrink)

In two studies, we predicted and found that inferences about motive and character influence intentionality attributions about foreseeable consequences of action (i.e., side effects). First, we show that inferences about intentionality are greater for good side effects than bad side effects when a target person's character is described positively. In Study 2, we manipulated information about a target person and found that inferences about intentionality were greater when side effects were consistent with a target person's character and motives. Overall, our (...) data cast doubt on the generality of the side-effect effect. We discuss our findings and their implications for future research on intentionality and social perception. (shrink)

In the following essay I use an extended commentary on Dave Elder-Vass’s The Reality of Social Construction to explore the issue of what progress in realism means. I set out and critique the concept of the norm circle in order to consider how an argument is developed as realist social theory and what limits that might have in terms of the recognized realist concept of adequacy. Specifically, I address the way realist social theory can become restricted to an internal exploration (...) of realism whilst issues of real world relevance are deferred. (shrink)

Recent philosophical literature has turned its attention towards assessments of how to judge scientific proposals as worthy of further inquiry. Previous work, as well as papers contained within this special issue, propose criteria for pursuitworthiness (Achinstein, 1993; Whitt, 1992; DiMarco & Khalifa, 2019; Laudan, 1977; Shan, 2020; Šešelja et al., 2012). The purpose of this paper is to assess the grounds on which pursuitworthiness demands can be legitimately made. To do this, I propose a challenge to the possibility of even (...) minimal criteria of pursuitworthiness, inspired by Paul Feyerabend. I go on to provide a framework for identifying the contexts in which pursuitworthiness criteria may promote the efficiency of scientific inquiry. I then spell out some implications this framework has for values and pursuit. (shrink)

In this report, the phenomenology of two blind users of a sensory substitution device – “The vOICe” – that converts visual images to auditory signals is described. The users both report detailed visual phenomenology that developed within months of immersive use and has continued to evolve over a period of years. This visual phenomenology, although triggered through use of The vOICe, is likely to depend not only on online visualization of the auditory signal but also on the users’ previous (albeit (...) distant) experience of veridical vision (e.g. knowledge of shapes and visual perspective). Once established, the sensory substitution mapping between the auditory and visual domains is not confined to when the device is worn and, thus, may constitute an example of acquired synaesthesia. (shrink)

Jamie Dow presents an original treatment of Aristotle's views on rhetoric and the passions, and the first major study of Aristotle's Rhetoric in recent years. He attributes to Aristotle a normative view of rhetoric and its role in the state, and ascribes to him a particular view of the kinds of cognitions involved in the passions.