Over recent years, the research community has been increasingly using preprint servers to share manuscripts that are not yet peer-reviewed. Even if it enables quick dissemination of research findings, this practice raises several challenges in publication ethics and integrity. In particular, preprints have become an important source of information for stakeholders interested in COVID19 research developments, including traditional media, social media, and policy makers. Despite caveats about their nature, many users can still confuse pre-prints with peer-reviewed manuscripts. If unconfirmed but (...) already widely shared first-draft results later prove wrong or misinterpreted, it can be very difficult to “unlearn” what we thought was true. Complexity further increases if unconfirmed findings have been used to inform guidelines. To help achieve a balance between early access to research findings and its negative consequences, we formulated five recommendations: (a) consensus should be sought on a term clearer than ‘pre-print’, such as ‘Unrefereed manuscript’, “Manuscript awaiting peer review” or ‘’Non-reviewed manuscript”; (b) Caveats about unrefereed manuscripts should be prominent on their first page, and each page should include a red watermark stating ‘Caution—Not Peer Reviewed’; (c) pre-print authors should certify that their manuscript will be submitted to a peer-review journal, and should regularly update the manuscript status; (d) high level consultations should be convened, to formulate clear principles and policies for the publication and dissemination of non-peer reviewed research results; (e) in the longer term, an international initiative to certify servers that comply with good practices could be envisaged. (shrink)

The capacity to be creative, to produce new concepts, ideas, inventions, objects or art, is perhaps the most important attribute of the human brain. We know very little, however, about the nature of creativity or its neural basis. Some important questions include how should we define creativity? How is it related (or unrelated) to high intelligence? What psychological processes or environmental circumstance cause creative insights to occur? How is it related to conscious and unconscious processes? What is happening at the (...) neural level during moments of creativity? How is it related to health or illness, and especially mental illness? This paper will review introspective accounts from highly creative individuals. These accounts suggest that unconscious processes play an important role in achieving creative insights. Neuroimaging studies of the brain during "REST" (random episodic silent thought, also referred to as the default state) suggest that the association cortices are the primary areas that are active during this state and that the brain is spontaneously reorganising and acting as a self-organising system. Neuroimaging studies also suggest that highly creative individuals have more intense activity in association cortices when performing tasks that challenge them to "make associations." Studies of creative individuals also indicate that they have a higher rate of mental illness than a noncreative comparison group, as well as a higher rate of both creativity and mental illness in their first-degree relatives. This raises interesting questions about the relationship between the nature of the unconscious, the unconscious and the predisposition to both creativity and mental illness. (shrink)

Philosophers, especially in recent years, have engaged in reflection upon the nature of experience. Such reflections have led them to draw a distinction between conscious and unconscious mentality in terms of whether or not it is like something to have a mental state. Reflection upon the history of psychology and upon contemporary cognitive science, however, identifies the distinction between conscious and unconscious mental states to be primarily one which is drawn in epistemic terms. Consciousness is an epistemic notion marking the (...) special kind of first-person knowledge we have of our own mental states. Psychologists have found it expedient, for explanatory reasons, to ignore or reject the assumption that we have exhaustive first-person knowledge of our mental states and, in doing so, use the term 'unconscious' to indicate the peculiar epistemic status of certain mental states.It is argued that epistemic consciousness is distinct from the subjective-experiential notion of consciousness, from 'access-consciousness' and from higher-order thought conceptions of mental state consciousness, and that epistemic consciousness has an important role to play in philosophy of mind and in the history of psychology. (shrink)

Interactive narratives are inextricable from the way that we understand our encounters with digital technology. This is based upon the way that these encounters are processually formed into a narrative of episodic events, arranged and re-arranged by various levels of agency. After describing past research conducted at the iCinema Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, this paper sets out a framework within which to build a relational theory of interactive narrative formation, outlining future research in the area.

The prospect of dealing with a rapidly and inexorably bleeding patient fills most medical practitioners with alarm. When that patient is a Jehovah's Witness, the knowledge that a blood transfusion is likely to be refused turns that alarm into a state of acute anxiety and conflict. This state is further heightened when the patient is young and otherwise healthy--a situation found particularly in obstetric practice with the occurrence of ante- and post-partum haemorrhage, and ectopic pregnancy. In the last 25 years (...) in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, there has been one maternal death in which the refusal to accept a blood transfusion has been considered to be an avoidable factor. In this article I have attempted to identify the magnitude of the problem in obstetric practice and have sought to clarify the moral and legal aspects. (shrink)

A short review is given of the Nuffield Council’s report on behavioural genetics. This review is used as an entry point to a discussion of the factors that influence the presentation of behavioural genetics in the media and in the popular scientific press. It is argued that our interest in formulating narrative explanations of our individual lives puts pressure on publishers and editors to present behavioural genetics in a selective, misleading, way. Some other influences on presentation are discussed and it (...) is suggested that the Nuffield report is particularly useful in so far as it lacks these distorting influences. (shrink)

I argue that lying in business negotiations is pro tanto wrong and no less wrong than lying in other contexts. First, I assert that lying in general is pro tanto wrong. Then, I examine and refute five arguments to the effect that lying in a business context is less wrong than lying in other contexts. The common thought behind these arguments—based on consent, self-defence, the “greater good,” fiduciary duty, and practicality—is that the particular circumstances which are characteristic of business negotiations (...) are such that the wrongness of lying is either mitigated or eliminated completely. I argue that all these “special exemption” arguments fail. I conclude that, in the absence of a credible argument to the contrary, the same moral constraints must apply to lying in business negotiations as apply to lying in other contexts. Furthermore, I show that for the negotiator, there are real practical benefits from not lying. (shrink)

Məqalə hərbi münaqişələrin mənşəyi, tarixi inkişaf xüsusiyyətləri və elmi yanaşmalarından bəhs edir. Bəşər tarixində silahlı qarşıdurmaların və müharibələrin yeri və rolu, onların dualist mahiyyəti və anlayış aparatının izahı problemin öyrənilməsində açar rolu oynayır. Sosial-iqtisadi formasiyalarda nəzərə çarpan radikal dəyişikliklər hərbi münaqişələrin xarakterinə, üsul və vasitələrinə ciddi təsir göstərib, bu istiqamətdə elmi araşdırmaların meydana gəlməsinə və inkişafına zəmin yaradıb. “Hərb işində inqilab” silahlı mübarizənin transformasiyası və “müharibə nəsilləri” bölgüsünün yaranması ilə nəticələnib. Müxtəlif məktəb və yanaşmalar kontekstində hərbi münaqişələrin izahı bu sosial (...) fenomenin çoxtərəfli və mürəkkəb xarakterə malik olması, digər elmi sahələri ilə sıx bağlılığına dəlalət edir. (shrink)

Stroud’s aim is threefold: 1) to provide an introduction for beginners, 2) "something of interest to Hume scholars," and 3) to "philosophers dealing with the problems he discussed". Stroud dissociates himself from those who regard Hume merely as a sceptic, from those who view Hume as a precursor of positivism, and from those who attribute to Hume an interest in analyzing or defining concepts. Instead, Stroud subscribes wholeheartedly to the Kemp Smith theses, and he emphasizes Hume’s positive theory of a (...) naturalistic science of man as a "completely comprehensive empirical investigation and explanation of why human beings are the way they are, and why they think, feel and behave as they do." Stroud then proceeds to interpret selected aspects of Hume with reference to the foregoing aim in conjunction with the "theory of ideas." The result is to see Hume’s positive theory as a form of projection, and some attempt is made to explore the relationship between an empirical investigation and a theory of projection. (shrink)

The overall purpose of Bricke’s book is to assess the prospects for a coherent theory of mind based on Humean principles. In the light of "recent work in philosophy" Bricke examines what is purported to be Hume’s philosophy of mind as found primarily in book 1 of the Treatise and the first Enquiry. The author also claims that he is "particularly concerned to give an accurate rendering: hence the amount of space devoted to close scrutiny of the texts, and of (...) any arguments Hume presents.... I make little effort to map my interpretation on to those of others.... In the relevant way my account saves the textual appearances". Bricke assesses the adequacy of these views, and attempts to make "some advance on the philosophical issues themselves.". (shrink)

Walsh admirably achieves the objective of this book, which is to supply the need for a lucid commentary on Kant’s first Critique that is both faithful to making the text clear and a sophisticated assessment of the arguments. Walsh’s work exemplifies patience, scholarship, and philosophical acumen. In response to the conventional criticism that Kant’s theses are marred by a psychological idiom, Walsh translates Kant into the contemporary linguistic idiom in a way that preserves the original remarkably well.

In pursuit of the first aim, Kekes directs his book to the attention of Anglo-American philosophers who have forsaken the key philosophical task. His approach is twofold. Writing in a post-Kuhnian period, he rebuts those versions of philosophical theorizing predicated on the distinction between discovery and justification. At the same time he presents an incisive running critique of scientism and the reduction of philosophy to its hand-maiden. He reminds us that science itself is only intelligible if there is already a (...) humanistic world-view. (shrink)

Anthropologists, through participant observation, play a large role in creating the very locus of their research: socio-cultural context. Challenges to the social-scientific ‘objectivity’ of this process draw strength from historical precedent, and serve a vital role in the larger anthropological project of confronting, as both critic and product of Western thought, its inherent tensions. In this paper, I focus on two types of epistemological bias that construct and reinforce the validity of objective knowledge: objectivism and literalism. An analysis of ethnographic (...) treatments of the philosophical concerns of metaphor theory and phenomenology of the senses illustrates both the difficulty and utility of taking on the epistemological underpinnings of social science. (shrink)