We show how an epistemology informed by cognitive science promises to shed light on an ancient problem in the philosophy of mathematics: the problem of exactness. The problem of exactness arises because geometrical knowledge is thought to concern perfect geometrical forms, whereas the embodiment of such forms in the natural world may be imperfect. There thus arises an apparent mismatch between mathematical concepts and physical reality. We propose that the problem can be solved by emphasizing the ways in which the (...) brain can transform and organize its perceptual intake. It is not necessary for a geometrical form to be perfectly instantiated in order for perception of such a form to be the basis of a geometrical concept. (shrink)

Barresi & Moore's “intentional schema” will not do the work of “theory of mind.” Their model will account neither for fundamental facts of social competence, such as the social attributions of the 10-month-old infant, nor the possibility that, though having a theory of mind, the chimpanzee's theory is “weaker” than the human's.

We suggest that innatism and constructivism may differ only in their time scale.

The present intractability of and near intractability of make self-control a difficult topic.

The application of neuroimaging technology to the study of the injured brain has transformed how neuroscientists understand disorders of consciousness, such as the vegetative and minimally conscious states, and deepened our understanding of mechanisms of recovery. This scientific progress, and its potential clinical translation, provides an opportunity for ethical reflection. It was against this scientific backdrop that we convened a conference of leading investigators in neuroimaging, disorders of consciousness and neuroethics. Our goal was to develop an ethical frame to move (...) these investigative techniques into mature clinical tools. This paper presents the recommendations and analysis of a Working Meeting on Ethics, Neuroimaging and Limited States of Consciousness held at Stanford University during June 2007. It represents an interdisciplinary approach to the challenges posed by the emerging use of neuroimaging technologies to describe and characterize disorders of consciousness. (shrink)

This paper draws on research undertaken by the authors in community well woman clinics and hospital settings. Discussion focuses on issues around informed consent and participant observation. The authors are concerned to highlight the complexity of decision-making where researchers hold dual or multiple agendas, which are sometimes in conflict. Further situational factors which affect decision-making in research settings are explored. In particular, the complexity of gaining informed consent throughout the research process is addressed. The intention is not to point to (...) definitive resolutions to the problems posed, but rather to prompt debate about the often taken for granted meaning of 'informed' consent in relationship to participant observation. Cet article est basé sur les recherches que les auteurs avaient entrepris dans des polycliniques de santé de femmes et des hôpitaux. La discussion est concentré sur les thèmes du consentement informé et l'observation participante. Les auteurs sont inquiets de montrer la complexité du processus de se décider quant les chercheurs ont un rôle double ou multiple qui peut être en conflit. D'autres éléments qui influencent la prise de décisions dans des cadres de recherche sont aussi étudiés. En particulier, la compléxité de l'acquisition du consentement informé est adressée. L'intention n'est pas d'amener à une résolution définitive du problème posé, mais plutôt d'inviter á une discussion sur le sens (trop souvent pris pour réalité) du consentment 'informé' quant il s'agit de l'observation participante. Dieser Artikel stützt auf Forschungen, die die Autoren in Frauengesundheits-Kliniken und Spitälern unternommen hatten. Die Diskussion ist hier über die Themen Informierte Zustimmung und Mitteilende Beobachtung. Die Autoren befassen sich mit der Vielschichtigkeit der Entscheidungskräfte wenn die Forscher doppelte oder mehrfache Rollen haben, die manchmal im Konflikt sein können. Andere Faktoren, die die Entscheidungsmöglichkeit beeinflussen, sind auch untersucht. Besonders wird hier die Komplexität des erhalten von informierter Zustimmungung während des Forschungsprozesses angesprochen. Die Absicht ist nicht, eine definitive Lösung des Problems zu finden, sondern eher zu einer Debatte einzuladen über die zu oft als selbstverständlich betrachtete Bedeutung der 'informierten' Zustimmung auf der Ebene der mitteilenden Beobachtung. (shrink)

A concise but informative overview of AI ethics and policy. -/- Artificial intelligence, or AI for short, has generated a staggering amount of hype in the past several years. Is it the game-changer it's been cracked up to be? If so, how is it changing the game? How is it likely to affect us as customers, tenants, aspiring homeowners, students, educators, patients, clients, prison inmates, members of ethnic and sexual minorities, and voters in liberal democracies? Authored by experts in fields (...) ranging from computer science and law to philosophy and cognitive science, this book offers a concise overview of moral, political, legal and economic implications of AI. It covers the basics of AI's latest permutation, machine learning, and considers issues such as transparency, bias, liability, privacy, and regulation. -/- Both business and government have integrated algorithmic decision support systems into their daily operations, and the book explores the implications for our lives as citizens. For example, do we take it on faith that a machine knows best in approving a patient's health insurance claim or a defendant's request for bail? What is the potential for manipulation by targeted political ads? How can the processes behind these technically sophisticated tools ever be transparent? The book discusses such issues as statistical definitions of fairness, legal and moral responsibility, the role of humans in machine learning decision systems, “nudging” algorithms and anonymized data, the effect of automation on the workplace, and AI as both regulatory tool and target. (shrink)

Abstract:Disturbing cases continue to be published of patients declared brain dead who later were found to have a few intact brain functions. We address the reasons for the mismatch between the whole-brain criterion and brain death tests, and suggest solutions. Many of the cases result from diagnostic errors in brain death determination. Others probably result from a tiny amount of residual blood flow to the brain despite intracranial circulatory arrest. Strategies to lessen the mismatch include improving brain death determination training (...) for physicians, mandating a test showing complete intracranial circulatory arrest, or revising the whole-brain criterion. (shrink)

Imagery is one of the new, exciting frontiers in cognitive therapy. From the outset of cognitive therapy, its founder Dr. Aaron T. Beck recognised the importance of imagery in the understanding and treatment of patient's problems. However, despite Beck's prescience, clinical research on imagery, and the integration of imagery interventions into clinical practice, developed slowly. It is only in the past 10 years that most writing and research on imagery in cognitive therapy has been conducted. The Oxford Guide to Imagery (...) in Cognitive Therapy is a landmark book, which will play an important role in the next phase of cognitive therapy's development. Clinicians and researchers are starting to recognise the centrality of imagery in the development, maintenance and treatment of psychological disorders - for example, in social phobia, agoraphobia, depression, PTSD, eating disorders, childhood trauma, and personality disorder. In the fields of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, researchers are identifying the key role that imagery plays in emotion, cognition and psychopathology.The Oxford Guide to Imagery in Cognitive Therapy has been written both for clinicians and researchers. For clinicians, it is a user-friendly, practical guide to imagery, which will enable therapists to understand imagery phenomenology, and to integrate imagery-based interventions into their cognitive therapy practice. For researchers, it provides a state-of-the-art summary of imagery research, and points the way to future studies. Written by three well-respected CBT researcher-clinicians, it is essential reading for all cognitive therapists, who have recognised the limitations of purely 'verbal' CBT techniques, and want to find new ways to work with clients with psychological disorders. Readership: CBT therapists. (shrink)

For three decades, Angela Y. Davis has written on liberation theory and democratic praxis. Challenging the foundations of mainstream discourse, her analyses of culture, gender, capital, and race have profoundly influenced democratic theory, antiracist feminism, critical studies and political struggles. Even for readers who primarily know her as a revolutionary of the late 1960s and early 1970s she has greatly expanded the scope and range of social philosophy and political theory. Expanding critical theory, contemporary progressive theorists - engaged in justice (...) struggles - will find their thought influenced by the liberation praxis of Angela Y. Davis. _The Angela Y. Davis Reader_ presents eighteen essays from her writings and interviews which have appeared in _If They Come in the Morning, Women, Race, and Class, Women, Culture, and Politics,_ and _Black Women and the Blues_ as well as articles published in women's, ethnic/black studies and communist journals, and cultural studies anthologies. In four parts - "Prisons, Repression, and Resistance", "Marxism, Anti-Racism, and Feminism", "Aesthetics and Culture", and recent interviews - Davis examines revolutionary politics and intellectualism. Davis's discourse chronicles progressive political movements and social philosophy. It is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary political philosophy, critical race theory, social theory, ethnic studies, American studies, African American studies, cultural theory, feminist philosophy, gender studies. (shrink)

The fundamental determinant of death in donation after circulatory determination of death is the cessation of brain circulation and function. We therefore propose the term donation after brain circulation determination of death [DBCDD]. In DBCDD, death is determined when the cessation of circulatory function is permanent but before it is irreversible, consistent with medical standards of death determination outside the context of organ donation. Safeguards to prevent error include that: 1] the possibility of auto-resuscitation has elapsed; 2] no brain circulation (...) may resume after the determination of death; 3] complete circulatory cessation is verified; and 4] the cessation of brain function is permanent and complete. Death should be determined by the confirmation of the cessation of systemic circulation; the use of brain death tests is invalid and unnecessary. Because this concept differs from current standards, consensus should be sought among stakeholders. The patient or surrogate should provide informed consent for organ donation by understanding the basis of the declaration of death. In cases of circulatory cessation, such as occurs in DBCDD, death can be defined as the permanent cessation of brain functions, determined by the permanent cessation of brain circulation. (shrink)

A perceptual learning experiment provides evidence that the mental lexicon cannot consist solely of detailed acoustic traces of recognition episodes. In a training lexical decision phase, listeners heard an ambiguous [f–s] fricative sound, replacing either [f] or [s] in words. In a test phase, listeners then made lexical decisions to visual targets following auditory primes. Critical materials were minimal pairs that could be a word with either [f] or [s] (cf. English knife–nice), none of which had been heard in training. (...) Listeners interpreted the minimal pair words differently in the second phase according to the training received in the first phase. Therefore, lexically mediated retuning of phoneme perception not only influences categorical decisions about fricatives (Norris, McQueen, & Cutler, 2003), but also benefits recognition of words outside the training set. The observed generalization across words suggests that this retuning occurs prelexically. Therefore, lexical processing involves sublexical phonological abstraction, not only accumulation of acoustic episodes. (shrink)

According to Quine’s indispensability argument, we ought to believe in just those mathematical entities that we quantify over in our best scientific theories. Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment is part of the standard indispensability argument. However, we suggest that a new indispensability argument can be run using Armstrong’s criterion of ontological commitment rather than Quine’s. According to Armstrong’s criterion, ‘to be is to be a truthmaker (or part of one)’. We supplement this criterion with our own brand of metaphysics, 'Aristotelian (...) (...) realism', in order to identify the truthmakers of mathematics. We consider in particular as a case study the indispensability to physics of real analysis (the theory of the real numbers). We conclude that it is possible to run an indispensability argument without Quinean baggage. (shrink)

This article explores the themes of trust and ethical conduct in social research, with particular attention to the trust that can develop between the members of a research team as well as between researchers and the researched. The authors draw upon a three-year empirical study of destinations and outcomes for young people excluded from alternative educational provision. They also make reference to a contemporary exposition of Aristotle's writing on friendship in order to explore two sets of relevant distinctions that have (...) a bearing upon our understanding of relationships that emerge in the context of social research projects. These distinctions are between impartiality and selectivity on the one hand, and between universality and particularity on the other. The authors attempt to demonstrate that these distinctions influence the development of trust and the conduct of ethical research, arguing that the latter is not synonymous with compliance to ethical guidelines. (shrink)

Far more than just a dance, the dynamic choreography of the Yup’ik provides an illuminating window into the morality, social organization, and colonial history of this indigenous people. In Yupiit Yurayarait, anthropologist Ann Fienup-Riordan begins with a brief historical overview of the colonization and development of Alaska from the Yup'ik point of view. Then, armed with oral history testimony spanning thirty years, she shows how singing and dancing are interconnected and imbued with meaning in this complex ritual. Accompanied by one (...) hundred and fifty original photographs, this volume marks the first in-depth look at the Yup’ik people through the lens of interpretive dance. (shrink)

Machine metaphors abound in life sciences: animals as automata, mitochondria as engines, brains as computers. Philosophers have criticized machine metaphors for implying that life functions mechanically, misleading research. This approach misses a crucial point in applying machine metaphors to biological phenomena: their reciprocity. Analogical modeling of machines and biological entities is not a one-way street where our understanding of biology must obey a mechanical conception of machines. While our understanding of biological phenomena undoubtedly has been shaped by machine metaphors, the (...) resulting insights have likewise altered our understanding of what machines are and what they can do. (shrink)

The contemporary global language “extinction crisis” has been analyzed by several influential linguists using concepts from ecology. In this article we study different reaction-diffusion models to explain the dynamics of language competition. We are mainly interested in situations where one language has a status advantage compared with the other. We consider previous applications of competition models from ecology, with particular attention to the implications of the “carrying capacity” term in such models. We derive existence as well as stability conditions for (...) the equilibria of the models considered, and show that depending on environmental conditions both situations—coexistence of competing languages or extinction of the less advantageous language—are possible. (shrink)

The field of second language acquisition (SLA) is by nature of its subject a highly interdisciplinary area of research. Learning a (foreign) language, for example, involves encoding new words, consolidating and committing them to long-term memory, and later retrieving them. All of these processes have direct parallels in the domain of human memory and have been thoroughly studied by researchers in that field. Yet, despite these clear links, the two fields have largely developed in parallel and in isolation from one (...) another. The present article aims to promote more cross-talk between SLA and memory science. We focus on foreign language (FL) attrition as an example of a research topic in SLA where the parallels with memory science are especially apparent. We discuss evidence that suggests that competition between languages is one of the mechanisms of FL attrition, paralleling the interference process thought to underlie forgetting in other domains of human memory. Backed up by concrete suggestions, we advocate the use of paradigms from the memory literature to study these interference effects in the language domain. In doing so, we hope to facilitate future cross-talk between the two fields and to further our understanding of FL attrition as a memory phenomenon. (shrink)

Although extensive research has been devoted to public perceptions and acceptance of controversial energy innovations, the perspectives of people developing and implementing such technologies are relatively under-examined. Other industries, such as mining, and social researchers have adopted the term “social licence to operate” (SLO) to conceptualise community–industry relationships. Despite its potential applicability to carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technology, SLO has received very little attention in this context, specifically from an engineering and managerial perspective. The internationally contested nature of (...) CCS highlights the importance of examining how engineers and managers discuss and understand the term SLO. Given the central role of engineers and managers in developing CCS technology and contributing to the creation of the contexts in which people relate to it, knowledge of how they understand their connection to communities impacted by the technology is a key area requiring deve.. (shrink)

William James and the Reinstatement of the Vague. By William Joseph Gavin. Anti‐foundationalism Old and New. Edited by Tom Rockmore and Beth Singer.

The disruptions of life in late modernity render self-identity fragile. Consequently, individuals must reflexively manage their emotions and periodically reinvent themselves to maintain a coherent narrative of the self. The rise of psychology as a discursive regime across the 20th century, and its intersections with a plethora of wellness industries, has furnished a new language of selfhood and greater public attention to emotions and personal narratives of suffering. Celebrities, who engage in public identity work to ensure their continued relatability, increasingly (...) provide models for navigating emotional trials. In this article we explore representations of selfhood and identity work in celebrity interviews. We focus on media veterans Nigella Lawson and Ruby Wax, both of whom are skilled in re-storying the self after personal crises. We argue that interpretive capital as a peculiarly late modern resource confers emotional advantages and life chances on individuals as they navigate upheavals, uncertainties, and intimate dilemmas. (shrink)

This article addresses two main questions: what is excellence and should epistemic excellence be the main purpose of education? Though references to excellence have become increasingly frequent in the UK education policy, these questions are perhaps especially important in Scotland where the curriculum is explicitly for excellence. Following Hirst and Peters, it is hypothesised that if the term ‘education’ implies possession of a certain breadth of general knowledge and understanding, then the term ‘excellence’ may imply a deep grasp of a (...) specific body of knowledge. However, after consideration of Dewey's suggestion that being present in the moment is an excellence of childhood, it is concluded that the development of epistemic excellence should be regarded as an educational purpose rather than the only educational purpose and pupil engagement with public traditions of knowledge provides necessary but not sufficient conditions for education. (shrink)

An understanding of cause--effect relationships is fundamental to the study of cognition. In this book, outstanding specialists from comparative psychology, social psychology, developmental psychology, anthropology, and philosophy present the newest developments in the study of causal cognition and discuss their different perspectives. They reflect on the role and forms of causal knowledge, both in animal and human cognition, on the development of human causal cognition from infancy, and on the relationship between individual and cultural aspects of causal understanding. The result (...) is a state-of-the-art, informative, insightful, and interdisciplinary debate aimed at the non-specialist. (shrink)

Arrhythmias are irregular heartbeats that may be life-threatening. Proper monitoring and the right care at the right time are necessary to keep the heart healthy. Monitoring electrocardiogram patterns on continuous monitoring devices is time-consuming. An intense manual inspection by caregivers is not an option. In addition, such an inspection could result in errors and inter-variability. This article proposes an automated ECG beat classification method based on deep neural networks to aid in the detection of cardiac arrhythmias. The data collected by (...) an Internet of Things enabled ECG monitoring device are transferred to a server. They are analysed by a deep learning model, and the results are shared with the primary caregiver. The proposed model is trained using the MIT-BIH ECG arrhythmia database to classify into four classes: normal beat, left bundle branch block beat, right bundle branch block beat, and premature ventricular contraction. The received data are sampled with an overlapping sliding window and divided into an 80:20 ratio for training and testing, with tenfold cross-validation. The proposed method achieves higher accuracy with a simple model without any preprocessing when compared with previous works. For the train and test sets, we achieved accuracy rates of 99.09 and 99.03%, respectively. A precision, recall, and F1 scores of 0.99 is obtained. The proposed model achieves its goal of developing a simple and accurate ECG monitoring system with improved performance. This simple and efficient deep learning approach for heartbeat classification could be applied in real-time telehealth monitoring systems. (shrink)

BackgroundThe evolution of the female orgasm in humans and its role in romantic relationships is poorly understood. Whereas the male orgasm is inherently linked to reproduction, the female orgasm is not linked to obvious reproductive or survival benefits. It also occurs less consistently during penetrative sex than does the male orgasm. Mate-choice hypotheses posit that the wide variation in female orgasm frequency reflects a discriminatory mechanism designed to select high-quality mates.ObjectiveWe aimed to determine whether women report that their orgasm frequency (...) varies between partners, whether this variation reflects mates' personal characteristics, and whether this variation reflects own and partner sexual behaviour during intercourse.DesignWe collected survey data from 103 women who rated the extent to which their orgasm frequency varied between partners, the characteristics of previous sexual partners who induced high-orgasm frequency and those who induced low-orgasm frequency,... (shrink)