Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 6, June 2022.

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of 'lenses' and 'tensions' to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and (...) procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the 'mess' of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses. (shrink)

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of ‘lenses’ and ‘tensions’ to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and (...) procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the ‘mess’ of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses. (shrink)

In this series of eight articles, the Australian Traumatic Brain Injury Initiative (AUS-TBI) consortium describes the Australian approach used to select the common data elements collected acutely that have been shown to predict outcome following moderate-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) across the lifespan. This article presents the unified single data dictionary, together with additional measures chosen to facilitate comparative effectiveness research and data linkage. Consultations with the AUS-TBI Lived Experience Expert Group provided insights on the merits and considerations regarding data (...) elements for some of the study areas, as well as more general principles to guide the collection of data and the selection of meaningful measures. These are presented as a series of guiding principles and themes. The AUS-TBI Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Group identified a number of key points and considerations for the project approach specific to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including key issues of data sovereignty and community involvement. These are outlined in the form of principles to guide selection of appropriate methodologies, data management, and governance. Implementation of the AUS-TBI approach aims to maximize ongoing data collection and linkage, to facilitate personalization of care and improved outcomes for people who experience moderate-severe TBI. (shrink)

The extension of the method of science to the study of the astronomical universe as a whole is an impressive and important feature of recent intellectual history. In a field where previously myth and metaphysics ranged at will with speculative abandon but with little in the way of progressively cumulative information or insight, by contrast, scientific cosmology has already produced significant results of an observational sort and opened up vistas of disciplined theoretical vision that are a token of even more (...) extensive disclosures to come. With the aid of high-powered telescopes, observationally grounded descriptive generalizations have been established about the structure, distribution and motions of the bodies constituting the basic astronomical units out of which the universe is composed. Such units are, in contemporary investigations, identified as the extragalactic nebulae. Preliminary surveys revealed a uniformity of distribution of these nebulae throughout space and in all directions. Also original surveys, accomplished primarily by Hubble, suggested an empirical law stating a linear proportionality between the distances to nebulae and the red-shift in their spectra. If such red-shift is interpreted as a velocity effect, it may be taken as marking a mutual recession of nebulae from one another, and leads thereby to the general idea of an “expanding universe.' Meanwhile, theoretical cosmology in the hands of the mathematical physicists has kept pace with observational advances by offering a variety of ”models” or explanatory theoretical devices for the systematic ordering and incorporation of the fruits of observation. Beginning with the ground-breaking paper by Einstein in 1917 where an extension was made of relativistic principles to the cosmologic domain, a variety of further attempts were made along classical relativistic lines by Einstein himself, de Sitter, Robertson, Tolman and Lamaître while somewhat different modes of approach were subsequently opened in several directions by Milne, Eddington, Hoyle, and others. While nothing in the way of a stable or wholly acceptable theory has yet made its appearance, nevertheless fruitful and promising lines of research have thus been inaugurated. (shrink)

This article seeks to show that E.A. Milne’s philosophy of science has its roots in the philosophy of Aristotle and it could be an inspiration for Popper’s philosophy. The similarities with Aristotle’s concept are as follows: 1) the aim of science is to explain phenomena by discovering general principles; 2) the mind is responsible for discovering them, although experience guides the search; 3) deducing detailed statements from general assumptions is the most important element of research. On the other hand, (...) Milne’s proposal is consistent with Popper’s main ideas: 1) criticism of the principle of induction; 2) preference for the hypothetical-deductive method ; 3) appreciation of falsification and confidence in the effectiveness of deductive logic. (shrink)

Kendall Walton’s _Mimesis as make believe_ (1990) is a pivotal text in understanding the receiver’s role during aesthetic experience. Within his theory, aesthetic emotions have a specific importance, and they are considered as quasi-emotions. In this essay, Walton’s account, will be criticised, as it is based on the inappropriate and inconsistent concept of quasi-emotions. Firstly, quasi-emotions entail a mimetic and dualistic perspective on real and fictional words. Moreover, quasi-emotions make Walton’s theory relevant to understand only artistic fruition, and not (...) aesthetic experience. (shrink)

We show that the big bang is a coordinate singularity for a large class of \ inflationary FLRW spacetimes which we have dubbed ‘Milne-like.’ By introducing a new set of coordinates, the big bang appears as a past boundary of the universe where the metric is no longer degenerate—a result which has already been investigated in the context of vacuum decay. We generalize their results and approach the problem from a more mathematical perspective. Similar to how investigating the geometrical (...) properties of the \ event horizon in Schwarzschild led to a better understanding of black holes, we believe that investigating the geometrical properties of the big bang coordinate singularity for Milne-like spacetimes could lead to a better understanding of cosmology. We show how the mathematics of these spacetimes may help illuminate certain issues associated with dark energy, dark matter, and the universe’s missing antimatter. (shrink)

The concept of mimesis has been central to philosophical aesthetics from Aristotle to Kendall Walton: in plain terms, it highlights the links between a fictional world or a representational practice on the one hand and the real world on the other. The present collection of essays includes discussions of its general viability and pertinence and of its historical origins, as well as detailed analyses of various relevant issues regarding literature, film, theatre, images and computer games. The individual papers offer (...) new arguments for the specialist, yet in their sum also provide a solid and helpful survey of the current state of the debate. Contributions by P. Alward, G. Currie, D. Davies, L. Dole el, J. Hamilton, T. Kobli ek, P. Kot'atko, A. Kuzmicova, J. Levinson, A. Meskin, A. Pettersson, M. Pokorny, J. Robson, G. Rossholm, R. M. Sainsbury, F. Stjernberg, E. Terrone, K. Thein, A. Voltolini. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:168 BOOK REVIEWS which operates with the help of curial congregations, and a theological model of the church as a communion of communions, which allows for a certain autonomy and diversity at the level of the particular church within a more encompassing unity. The authority of the local church is sacramentally based in the consecration of its bishop, the priesthood of the laity, and the Eucharist by which the (...) church is constituted. It is unfair for a reviewer to rewrite an author's book, but I would suggest that the principles of order, collegiality, shared responsibility, renewed primacy, etc., with which Rausch concludes his hook will only become operative within a renewed understanding of the church. The question of authority and leadership within the church cannot be addressed apart from a consideration of the nature of the church itself. Saint Mary College Leavenworth, Kansas SusAN K. Woon Twentieth Century in Crisis: Foundations of Totalitarianism. By LARRY AZAR. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company. Pp. xi + 317. $24.95. The Nazis were responsible for the murder of 12 million humans: 7 million Christians, 5 million Jews. Adolph Eichmann, " The Engineer of Death," alone was responsible for the killing of fifteen persons a minute, or nine hundred an hour, at. (shrink)

The propensity interpretation of probability, bred by Popper in 1957(K. R. Popper, in Observation and Interpretation in the Philosophy of Physics,S. Körner, ed. (Butterworth, London, 1957, and Dover, New York, 1962), p. 65; reprinted in Popper Selections,D. W. Miller, ed. (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1985), p. 199) from pure frequency stock, is the only extant objectivist account that provides any proper understanding of single-case probabilities as well as of probabilities in ensembles and in the long run. In Sec. 1 of (...) this paper I recall salient points of the frequency interpretations of von Mises and of Popper himself, and in Sec. 2 I filter out from Popper's numerous expositions of the propensity interpretation its most interesting and fertile strain. I then go on to assess it. First I defend it, in Sec. 3, against recent criticisms(P. Humphreys, Philos. Rev.94,557 (1985); P. Milne, Erkenntnis25,129 (1986)) to the effect that conditional [or relative] probabilities, unlike absolute probabilities, can only rarely be made sense of as propensities. I then challenge its predominance, in Sec. 4, by outlining a rival theory: an irreproachably objectivist theory of probability, fully applicable to the single case, that interprets physical probabilities asinstantaneous frequencies. (shrink)

Modal ontolojik argüman, Tanrı’nın varlığını sadece bilfiil gerçek olan bu dünyada değil, bütün mümkün dünyalarda göstermeye yönelik bir argümandır. Anselm’in (1033-1109) Proslogion adlı eserinin 3. bölümünde “kendisinden daha büyüğü düşünülemeyen” şeklinde tanımlanan; Tanrı’nın var olmamasının da düşünülemeyeceğini, bu yüzden de varolmamasının imkansızlığı üzerinde kurulu yeni bir argüman bulunduğunu öne süren bazı araştırmacılar, bu argümanı mümkün dünyalar semantiği yardımıyla formüle edip, “modal ontolojik argüman” şeklinde adlandırmışlardır. Çok farklı şekillerde formüle edilmiş bu argüman kabaca Tanrı’nın mümkünse zorunlu olması, dolayısıyla bilfiil gerçek olan (...) bu dünyada da var olması gerektiğini savunur. (shrink)

Yoga-Sutras of Patanjali is a foundational psychological text that organizes, codifies, and systematically presents in s_tra form the psychology as practised in India around second century BCE. Its theme is to help humans free themselves from their congenital bondage due to conditioned existence and consequent suffering. The goal is to restore the person to her inherent unconditioned blissful being. The quintessence of Yoga is meditation. Meditation consists of dharana and dhyana, a contemplative state of passive attention precipitated by a prolonged (...) practice of concentration. Dhy_na practice leads to sam_dhi, a stand-still altered state in which the mind is controlled and restrained from habitual cognitive processing. This paper provides a theoretical background of Patanjali Yoga and a select review of empirical research on the neurophysiological correlates of meditation, highlighting on the one hand some of its methodological shortcomings and conceptual problems and suggesting on the other hand the areas of promise for further research on meditation. (shrink)

Un révolutionnaire sommeille en chaque Français, prêt hier comme aujourd'hui à briser les rentes et les privilèges. Dans le même temps, un expert l'observe et le dirige, planifiant autoritairement la société. Et un geek lui tape sur l'épaule, l'entraînant dans le monde inconnu des nouvelles technologies qui fourmille de promesses et de menaces. Ces trois influences parfois contradictoires nous font tourner la tête. Gaspard Koenig propose donc de les interpréter à la lumière d'une nouvelle philosophie politique, fondée sur l'autonomie individuelle. (...) Car ce dont la France a besoin, ce n'est pas d'un énième diagnostic économique, mais de principes solides dont on pourra déduire des réformes radicales. Revenons au modèle révolutionnaire, ce «jacobinisme libéral» incarné par le député du tiers état Isaac Le Chapelier. Rejetons la tentation planiste, léguée par le régime de Vichy et responsable encore aujourd'hui de tant d'injustice et d'exclusion. Apprenons à maîtriser l'utopie numérique, en imaginant un nouvel humanisme qui réponde aux défis de la Silicon Valley et un Etat 2.0 qui nous redonne le contrôle de notre destin numérique. Pays des libertés, la France meurt de servitude volontaire. Terminons, enfin, notre Révolution! Et chacun deviendra son propre maître. (shrink)

The norms and values of Post-Normal Science (PNS) are instrumental in guiding science advice practices. In this article, we report work in progress to systematically investigate the norms and values of PNS through a structured review. An archive of 397 documents was collected, including documents that contribute to the endeavour of ameliorating science advice practices from a PNS perspective. Action and structure-oriented viewpoints are used as complementing perspectives in the analysis of the ethos of PNS. From the action-perspective we study (...) how prototypes of norms and values are reflected upon in negotiations of normative issues relating to science advice. From the structural perspective we study how interrelated prototypes of norms and values are presupposed in prescriptions, proscriptions, and goals for science advice practices. Through this analysis we identify a plurality of interrelated prototypes of norms and values. Finally, we propose an acronym that integrates the analysed plurality of norms and values. As a mnemonic and communicative devise we call this ethos TRUST (Transparency, Robustness, Uncertainty management, Sustainability, and Transdisciplinarity) and propose TRUST as a nexus for future reflective negotiations of ambivalences in post-normal practices of science advice. (shrink)