Questionable research practices are a well-recognized problem in psychology. Coding bias, or the tendency of review studies to disproportionately cite positive findings from original research, has received comparatively little attention. Coding bias is more likely to occur when original research, such as neuroimaging, includes large numbers of effects, and is most concerning in applied contexts. We evaluated coding bias in reviews of structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) studies of PCL-R psychopathy. We used PRISMA guidelines to locate all relevant original sMRI (...) studies and reviews. The proportion of null-findings cited in reviews was significantly lower than those reported in original research, indicating coding bias. Coding bias was not affected by publication date or review design. Reviews recommending forensic applications—such as treatment amenability or reduced criminal responsibility—were no more accurate than purely theoretical reviews. Coding bias may have contributed to a perception that structural brain abnormalities in psychopaths are more consistent than they actually are, and by extension that sMRI findings are suitable for forensic application. We discuss possible sources for the pervasive coding bias we observed, and we provide recommendations to counteract this bias in review studies. Until coding bias is addressed, we argue that this literature should not inform conclusions about psychopaths' neurobiology, especially in forensic contexts. (shrink)

The philosophical debate over psychopaths’ moral and criminal responsibility is increasingly evidence based. However, as we noted, such arguments are misleading if philosophers only consider evidence that supports their own positions. In his response, Glannon counters our argument by introducing new evidence—neuroimaging data—and so demonstrates the exact problem we outlined; Strijbos, in contrast, offers a workable solution.Glannon’s response is a succinct summation of the strengths and weaknesses that philosophers bring to the debate. Although Glannon accurately portrays the potential role of (...) neuroimaging data in determining responsibility as merely supplementary to behavior, he simultaneously mistakes the... (shrink)

The Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL; Hare, Neumann, & Mokros 2018) scales are among the most widely used forensic assessment tools. Their perceived utility rests partly on their ability to assess stable personality traits indicative of a lack of conscience, which then facilitates behavioral predictions useful in forensic decisions. In this systematic review, we evaluate the empirical evidence behind 3 fundamental justifications for using the PCL scales in forensics, namely, that they are empirically predictive of (1) criminal behavior, (2) treatment outcomes, (...) and (3) a lack of conscience. We found the PCL scales can predict criminal behavior to a statistically significant degree, though with important limitations. We found no evidence of PCL psychopathy being predictive of treatment and rehabilitation outcomes. We found no evidence of PCL psychopathy being predictive of a lack of conscience. These findings disprove widespread beliefs about PCL psychopathy among forensic practitioners and questions the current and future role of the PCL scales in forensic settings. (shrink)

Psychopathy is one of the most frequently cited disorders in discussions of moral and criminal responsibility. Many philosophers and psychologists have argued that psychopaths’ impaired capacity for empathy, diminished responses to fear-inducing stimuli, and failure to conform to social norms indicate that they are not responsible for their actions. In “Philosophers on psychopaths: A cautionary tale in interdisciplinarity,” Jarkko Jalava and Stephanie Griffiths cite psychological data from case studies, the moral/conventional distinction task, fear conditioning and facial affect recognition (...) experiments in arguing that philosophers systematically misinterpret or simplify the data to support their conclusions... (shrink)

We present a novel variant of decision making based on the mathematical theory of separable Hilbert spaces. This mathematical structure captures the effect of superposition of composite prospects, including many incorporated intentions, which allows us to describe a variety of interesting fallacies and anomalies that have been reported to particularize the decision making of real human beings. The theory characterizes entangled decision making, non-commutativity of subsequent decisions, and intention interference. We demonstrate how the violation of the Savage’s sure-thing principle, known (...) as the disjunction effect, can be explained quantitatively as a result of the interference of intentions, when making decisions under uncertainty. The disjunction effects, observed in experiments, are accurately predicted using a theorem on interference alternation that we derive, which connects aversion-to-uncertainty to the appearance of negative interference terms suppressing the probability of actions. The conjunction fallacy is also explained by the presence of the interference terms. A series of experiments are analyzed and shown to be in excellent agreement with a priori evaluation of interference effects. The conjunction fallacy is also shown to be a sufficient condition for the disjunction effect, and novel experiments testing the combined interplay between the two effects are suggested. (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)

The development of the social sciences needs to rely on precise methods. The nomological model of explanation adopted in the natural sciences is ill-suited for the social sciences. An algorithmic model of society can be a promising solution to existing problems. In its most general form, an algorithm is a generally understood prescription for what actions to perform and in what order to achieve the desired result. Any algorithm can be represented as a set of rules of the form «If (...) A, do D to get P». People are the bearers of this kind of rules that apply in different areas of their activities. The rules are subject to change based on personal and collective experience. There is a special mathematical discipline that studies the laws of evolution of such rules. This discipline is called genetic programming. Contrary to the threatening name, the algorithmic model does not imply the deprivation of a person’s right to free choice, but it needs this right as a necessary condition for the evolution of social algorithms. These algorithms allow us to give a non-causal, but law-like explanation of many well-known social phenomena, as well as to effectively model the future, which is critically important today. A retrospective look at the evolution of social algorithms shows that the current global crisis of human society is associated with the approach to the point of singularity in their evolution. This is due to the fact that there is no need for direct human participation in the implementation of social algorithms, which is reflected in a fundamental change in the sphere of employment and less need for further development of the sciences. (shrink)

В сборнике представлены очерки, герои которых - художники, философы, священнослужители, ученые, император Индии, французская крестьянка, Учитель Гималайского Братства и другие - сыграли немаловажную роль в земном творчестве Космической эволюции. Для широкого круга читателей.

A compact edition of Mr. Beck's excellent translation of the second Critique, slightly revised, together with a helpful short introduction and a bibliography.--V. C. C.

The process of turning a myth into a fairy tale, its internal and external causes, patterns, consequences... It may be difficult to find a more traditional way of exploring a fairy tale than this one. We will not avoid it either, because whatever aspect of the fairy tale analysis we choose, it is impossible to bypass this side of its genesis. And the choice of the method of explication of this problem largely predetermines both the angle of her vision and (...) the means of solution. The same traditions have already been given peculiar power lines that urge more and more researchers to move in the area of ​​these lines and to cover more and more varieties of the same dimensions of the object: demythologization and desacralization of the hero, his actions, his environment; giving the myth an exoteric character, with the elements of fiction and irony that are inconceivable as a result; the shrinking of the scale of the hero's actions, and hence the replacement of the mystery of myth with mysteriousness, intrigue in the fairy tale, the decline of the mythological worldview. The topics of branching of the subjects through the myth to the fairy tale, finding and researching common for both phenomena of binary oppositions, etc., are densely addressed. (shrink)

We present a short introduction to, and the first English language translation of, Theodor W. Adorno's 1964 article, "Meinungsforschung und Öffentlichkeit." In this article, Adorno situates the misunderstanding of public opinion within a dialectic of elements of publicness itself: empirical publicness' dependence on a normative ideology of publicness, and modern publicness' tendency to undermine its own principles. He also locates it in the dual role of mass media as both fora for the expression of opinion and, as he calls them, (...) "organs of public opinion." The introduction provides a discussion of Adorno's reception in the American academy, arguing that contemporary sociological practice should be concerned with the problems Adorno raises. We suggest that Adorno's relegation to the fields of philosophy and aesthetics belies his relevance to empirical sociological research. (shrink)

This work is devoted to the relations between Lambek’s Syntactic Calculus and noncommutative variants of Girard’s Linear Logic; in particular the paper will consider: the geometrical representation of the laws of LC by means of proof-nets; the discovery - due to such a geometrical representation - of some laws of LC not yet considered; the discussion of possible linguistic uses of these new laws.