This article reviews current methods for evaluating models in the cognitive sciences, including theoretically based approaches, such as Bayes factors and minimum description length measures; simulation approaches, including model mimicry evaluations; and practical approaches, such as validation and generalization measures. This article argues that, although often useful in specific settings, most of these approaches are limited in their ability to give a general assessment of models. This article argues that hierarchical methods, generally, and hierarchical Bayesian methods, specifically, can provide a (...) more thorough evaluation of models in the cognitive sciences. This article presents two worked examples of hierarchical Bayesian analyses to demonstrate how the approach addresses key questions of descriptive adequacy, parameter interference, prediction, and generalization in principled and coherent ways. (shrink)

An essential element in both lay and professional definitions of alcoholism is the a priori claim that afflicted individuals lack control over their drinking and/or over their behavior while drinking. The social, legal and scientific consequences of accepting this claim are examined. Based on specific evidence drawn from recent journal articles, we argue that alcohol researchers fail to adequately engage the issue of volition and that their research designs and findings are thereby flawed.

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Abstractp53 is a multifunctional protein which plays a role in modulating gene transcription, policing cell cycle checkpoints, activating apoptosis, controlling DNA replication and repair, maintaining genomic stability and responding to genetic insults. Mutation of the p53 gene confers the single greatest known selective advantage favoring cancer formation. Point mutations result not only in the loss of tumor suppressor functions, but also in the gain of tumor promotion functions. These dual circumstances may be unique to p53 and, in part, could explain (...) the relatively powerful force behind this selection pressure. General mechanisms of gain of function by mutated p53 may include alteration in transcriptional modulation and newly acquired targets for transcriptional regulation and protein binding. Despite the direct significance of p53 mutations, loss of the remaining wild‐type allele is usually required for the formation of tumors in the natural setting. Novel applications of the basic scientific knowledge of p53 could lead to an improvement in cancer treatment, hopefully in the not so distant future. (shrink)

Previous research has found that funding disparities are driven by applications’ final impact scores and that only a portion of the black/white funding gap can be explained by bibliometrics and topic choice. Using National Institutes of Health R01 applications for council years 2014–2016, we examine assigned reviewers’ preliminary overall impact and criterion scores to evaluate whether racial disparities in impact scores can be explained by application and applicant characteristics. We hypothesize that differences in commensuration—the process of combining criterion scores into (...) overall impact scores—disadvantage black applicants. Using multilevel models and matching on key variables including career stage, gender, and area of science, we find little evidence for racial disparities emerging in the process of combining preliminary criterion scores into preliminary overall impact scores. Instead, preliminary criterion scores fully account for racial disparities—yet do not explain all of the variability—in preliminary overall impact scores. (shrink)

This book explores Dostoevsky as a political thinker from his religious and philosophical foundation to nineteenth-century European politics and how themes that he had examined are still relevant for us today.

This volume insists that, if we are to properly face the challenges of the coming century, we need to re-examine international politics and development through the prism of ethics and morality. International relations must now contend with a widening circle of participants reflecting the diversity and unevenness of status, memory, gender, race, culture and class. Contributors to this volume challenge North America's privileged position in world politics, suggest initiatives for improving the quality of human existence in tangible ways, and critique (...) the conventional wisdom on how we think we can create peace and justice. Re-Framing the International shows that, when we develop projects for world reform, we must remember that the most basic prevailing assumptions of modern law, politics, and culture are by no means as obvious, natural, or progressive as we formerly thought. (shrink)

Up in the last one in the United States comes to understand the general process: it is linguistics and history, and it requires a priori understanding that In order to understand the current situation before, prior to a full understanding effectiveness and bias as understanding the meaning is from whole to part and from part to whole , in the understanding of the history and heritage hermeneutic circle is always in operation, understanding related to the sight of the fusion eventually (...) like Q & A dialogue. In order to interpret this paper, the classic text of the task. Gadamer on this topic already has a large amount of experience, and to make you pleasantly surprised or not surprised the way described in this topic. This presentation will define and into the road to discuss seven key words, these seven key words will help us to understand Gadamer are talking about the interpretation of the classic text. Each of these seven words on a word, the speaker will be asked whether you find in your own experience is true. 1. Gleichzeitigkeit-both of the words appear in the "real management and methods" up to the U.S. for the aesthetic experience in the timing of the discussion. He found that when visual field interaction, the reader found In order to interpret the ancient texts and aging time distance between the disappearance of the activities in reading, and text with our own game to attract you into the presence. In this part of the final, which also is mentioned for the moral, economic, regardless of language and other classics: They attract you to the significance of the cycle, like they were written today. 2. Applicatio-application In order to make up the United States is not used in accordance with such assertions: "understand something is to understand how it applies to pre-existing condition." So when the text is not only common, as in # 1, it means that something in the present before. In order to understand the application will be leading. History of the United States up to review the timing of the application was excluded, as well as understand the text is treated as just understanding and interpretation of events, but up to the United States want to re-restored early priority in the 19th and 20th centuries, the elements of hermeneutics. 3. Erfahrung-up experience in the United States defined by the qualification before a person experiences some of the things. Its typical form, is involved in the Lok empty hope, therefore, sentence description if not in the pit, not wisdom. Gadamer claims previous experience in the concept: "not to consider the experience of the inner history of." But up to the United States said that experience, "teaches us to recognize the reality." Experience, the result is "to know What is the What." The other result is that we "Experiences", it is not arbitrary and open to new experiences. In order to find you first read the classic text commands were prohibitive, and dismissed out of hand In order to your expectations, but in the end so make sure you are not the more arbitrary and more open to new experiences it? 4. Wahrheit-up to the United States is not really reasonable satisfaction of reasonable scientific definition of truth. His concern is that we insisted that the "true" regardless question. Description is described in "What things are the way" - a real management of ontology definitions. He followed Heidegger aletheia true management point of view, is to expose shield . According to this definition, even works of art can be "real". That is, it can expose the shield there things through other means in a way not possible. So the question is, under the classic in the sense that the writing is true? Gadamer description is. 5. Selbst-Verständnis-up to their own understanding to the United States in this裡In order to further understand more. It is not more deeply understand the true management classic, it is found that work experience change a person's sight and view of life, and it changed the understanding of a person's own. When the text of the event experience, we can integrate it into the "existence of a continuous nature." We can find the concept of other games in this裡: Application, experience and true management. Events with the classic encounter with a person unable to read the classics before he was the same person. 6. Verwandlung ins Gebilde-conversion into the structural changes that are described in works of art up to the way the United States. Some things have been transformed into the experience and continued with the description of future generations made ​​the structure裡. This is one of the functions of art: something to save future generations, but is really something. This is Why is it up to the United States in terms of tradition is so important. This structure is special, it no longer be measured by our standards, but from its own standards. Finally, the significance of change is more true for the mediocre, reading the text is found in its own transformation, a person will not stay in place. 7. Solidarität, Fest-one of the festival in the late works with up to learn to find beauty in the human basis of his artistic point of view. Therefore, "the United States related" has three parts, the game, , symbol , and festivals. In later works, he found time not only festivals are important, it's time from the day In order to inspire us, but it also brought together a community and the joint, to celebrate the event in its creation裡. Festival "to improve our sense of life." Arts festival to share with so many things, when we have nature and art associated, the more we are able to understand art. The end of this lecture will ask you to read the classic self-experience, Gadamer's concept of the Concept for you is true. An introductory section explains that the lecture will present seven key terms, representing seven aspects of the universal process of understanding. It is noted that a published lecture in Chinese by this author under the title "Seven Key Terms in the Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer "is not the same as this, and indeed only one of the terms in that lecture is used in this one, although four of them are used in tomorrow's lecture. (shrink)

1施莱尔玛赫 contribution to the development施莱尔玛赫for hermeneutics in the development of Historically hermeneutics In order to make a decisive turn when he made ​​the future "general hermeneutics" , hermeneutics will be applied to all text interpretation. When the traditional hermeneutics contains In order to understand, description and application,施莱尔玛赫the attention is hermeneutics as "the art of understanding." 施莱尔玛赫also introduced the interpretation of psychology, can penetrate the text by means of its author's individuality and flexibility soul. He wanted to become a systematic hermeneutics, (...) and criticism of previous hermeneutics is "the rules of the merger," and the lack of coherence. Wu Ning speaking, they deal with different issues is a combination of methods. 施莱尔玛赫hermeneutics points to avoid misunderstanding of the text. This part is up to the final discussion of施莱尔玛赫criticism of the United States. 2. Dilthey contribution to the philosophical hermeneutics of Dilthey on施莱尔玛赫In order to write the thesis, including In order to Protestant hermeneutics history, from the Reformation to the future as a second reference books. He was a learned scholar and has been on many topics regardless above. For our purposes, Dilthey is a philosopher with a passion for life, he was placed In order to humanities and social sciences and natural sciences in an established full equality of points, by the foundation on the hermeneutics In order to develop a basic methodology. But in the science competition, he was seeking "Allgemeingultigkeit", a universal validity, to do so In order to give him too much towards the foundation to the scientific methods of thought. He is still a major development of the character of philosophical hermeneutics. 3 Heidegger before and on philosophical hermeneutics, "and there is time" contribution to the development of philosophical hermeneutics is the decisive shift in Heidegger, born with the future, there are original philosopher The early works. He Freiburg Hu plugs Seoul assistant, and in the phenomenological Hu stopper Seoul In order to create a useful set up beyond the traditional methods of philosophy, but he is still too dependent on science Hu stopper Marco effectiveness. Part I: description of the evolution of the early Heidegger: "ontology - the fact of hermeneutics," the book published after the death of Heidegger was published in 1999, English translation, Heidegger in this series by the fact that the ontology of hermeneutics In order to give us a hermeneutic understanding of his meaning. In order to avoid the traditional hermeneutics of his meaning, In order to return to the ancient hope臘hermeneueinc and hermeneia idiom. He attempts to go beyond the limits of contemporary objects, through the period of return to the ancient hope臘general language idioms. Hermeneutic encounter with the interpretation of Homer's description of the mouth, publish, translate and interpret. His description of historical hermeneutics in the pull-down maps and sub ​​Lane Park after a groundbreaking Aristotle hope臘idioms in the loss of richness and decline. But the hermeneutics of Heidegger speaking the method is close to something, such as early speech hermeneutics In order to approach closer to the truth of it is understandable the former interpretation of this domain as there face life. For this last hermeneutics as the method of self-understanding, but in a letter to his students Engelbert Kerbs letter, Heidegger also emphasizes the history In order to recognize the character. Us from our understanding of historical context, our understanding of the structure is formed by shaping the concept of history and even our language. In Dilthey's hermeneutics, he also stressed that understanding the historical basis. From Dilthey to Heidegger this view. Heidegger in his speech defines hermeneutics as "the fact of participation, close, and descriptions of the same interrogation methods." Hermeneutics is the interpretation of not only understanding knowledge as a negative process, but active participation, interrogation and close. Fact of itself is interpreted, it is through understanding the questions and answers something. Heidegger back to the necessary conditions for our understanding of factors, understanding of "the former structure." He describes some part of the former, is awareness and understanding of nature, we understand something "to" something, and we understand it in a specific historical context. Further more, we expect to understand it in the presence of a sight, not a determining sexual arousal by the sight, by the basic problems of the future horizon, it is "the possibility of there," the sight, for there is a special special possible time horizon. These early works of Heidegger has been found there the possibility of meaning. We all都leadership to a new concept of the humanities. In addition, as a rational animal, as Aristotle said sub-Lane, who is of a future there may not be included, including the timing of there. People are looking to understand their own there. Instructions to Heidegger, hermeneutics offers a new concept for the person's point of view. Part II: there and time hermeneutics is first mentioned in the "there and the time," Section VII, Heidegger phenomenology has been interpreted as if it is. In order that he found "the meaning of phenomenological description as a way to rely on hermeneutics, phenomenology of this and some of the logos have hermeneuein the characteristics of this phenomenology is to use some basic meaning of the word hermeneutics, it indicates the work In order to interpret . "In the second sense, Heidegger found in hermeneutics裡are there for the meaning of this method of exposing the shield. The third meaning is the interpretation of this promising continuous manner so that its future is possible, it's future there. Section 31 of hermeneutics is important, because there is some understanding that is. Understanding the process is the center of human existence, in Section 32 entitled "interpretation and understanding," understanding the interpretation built on. Visit the world around it and understand things as this or that, always never as pure consciousness. As Heidegger said, "always had to watch as the ability to understand and interpret", in other words, there is no precedence in the interpretation of pure consciousness, there is always ask questions and interpretation of the visual field. Section 44, regardless Heidegger also true about management, in its modern form as a true statement, is always carried a deeper understanding and interpretation of the export process. But the really right is defined as the management there has been an associate of knot, so it access to basic ontology of sight. It is obvious that there's open, this hole is to guide him toward the police point of view of the artistic part of the next lecture will be discussed. This lecture primarily presents the two early works of Heidegger in which hermeneutics plays a definitive role. As background, the contributions of Schleiermacher and Dilthey are presented briefly before going into Heidegger's contribution. Ⅰ. Schleiermacher's Contribution to the Development of a Philosophical Hermeneutics Schleiermacher made a decisive turn in the history of hermeneutics when he proposed a "Universal Hermeneutics," a hermeneutics that would apply to all kinds of text interpretation. While traditional hermeneutics included moments of understanding, explication and application, Schleiermacher focused on hermeneutics as the "art of understanding . "Schleiermacher also introduced psychological interpretation whereby one tried to penetrate the individuality and soul of the author of a text. He wanted hermeneutics to be systematic, and he criticized previous hermeneutics for being only an" amalgam of rules "and lacking systematic coherence. Rather , they were methods for dealing with an array of different kinds of problems. Schleiermacher's hermeneutics was directed at avoiding misunderstanding of the text. At the end of this section Gadamer's criticisms of Schleiermacher will be discussed. Ⅱ. Dilthey's Contribution to Philosophical Hermeneutics Dilthey wrote his dissertation on Schleiermacher and included a history of Protestant hermeneutics since the Reformation as a second companion volume. He was a broadly educated professor and wrote on many topics. For our purposes, Dilthey was a life-philosopher with a passion for placing the Humanities and Social Sciences on an equal footing with the Natural Sciences by developing a basic methodology for them based on hermeneutics. But in competing with the sciences, he sought an "Allgemeingultigkeit," a universal validity, and in doing so he tended to give too much ground to the way of thinking in the sciences. Still, he is a major figure in the development of philosophical hermeneutics. Ⅲ. The Contribution of Martin Heidegger to Philosophical Hermeneutics before and in Being and Time The decisive turn in the development of a philosophical hermeneutics came in the early writings of Martin Heidegger, a radical and original philosopher. He was in Freiburg an assistant to Husserl and found in Husserl's phenomenology a useful way of overcoming traditional philosophy, but he still found Husserl too preoccupied with scientific validity. Part Ⅰ: Heidegger's Early Lectures: Ontology-the Hermeneutics of Facticity A posthumously published and translated set of Heidegger's lectures on ontology in terms of a hermeneutics of facticity gives us a sense of his understanding of hermeneutics. He bypassed the traditional sense of hermeneutics and went back to the Greek usage of hermeneuein and hermeneia. He attempted to overcome the limitations of modern objectivity by returning to the usages current in ordinary language in ancient Greece. There hermeneutics meant orally interpreting Homer, announcing, translating, and explaining. His account of the history of hermeneutics after Plato and Aristotle is a history of decline and loss of the richness found in Greek usage. But hermeneutics for Heidegger meant a means of access to something, and in these early lectures hermeneutics became an interpretive means of access to facticity, to the realm of pre-interpretive understanding as Dasein faces life. Ultimately hermeneutics became a means for the self-understanding for Dasein. But in a letter to his student, Engelbert Krebs, Heidegger also emphasizes the historical character of cognition. We understand from our situation in history, and our understanding is structured by historically shaped concepts and even our language. Dilthey, too, emphasized the historical matrix for understanding in his hermeneutics, and Heidegger took this up from Dilthey. Heidegger defined hermeneutics in the opening lines of the lectures as "the unified manner of the engaging, approaching, accessing, interrogating, and explication of facticity." Hermeneutics as interpretation is not just understanding as a passive process of cognition but an active engaging, interrogating, and accessing. Facticity itself is interpretive in that it sees what something is through question and answer. Heidegger is stepping back into the factors that precondition our understanding, the "forestructure" of understanding. This forehaving, he says, belongs to the very nature of knowing and understanding. We see something "as "something, and we see it in a specific historical situation. Furthermore, we see it in an existential horizon of expectation, a horizon haunted by uncertainty, by the" fundamental questionability of the future, that is of "possible being," of what is possible for this particular being at this particular time and place. Already in these early works Heidegger finds in the sense of what is possible being, a sense of "ontic questionability, care, restlessness, anxiety, temporality." All of this leads to a new conception of humanity. Instead of being an animal endowed with reason, as in Aristotle, a human being is a being with a possible future, a being with temporality. Humans are beings seeking to know themselves. Hermeneutics, Heidegger says, offers the standpoint for a new conception of the human being. Part Ⅱ: Being and Time The first mention of hermeneutics is in section 7 of Being and Time, where Heidegger is already interpreting phenomenology as letting what is show itself. He finds that " the meaning of phenomenological description as a method lies in interpretation. The logos of the phenomenology of Dasein has the character of hermēneúein. The phenomenology of Dasein is a hermeneutic in the original signification of the word, where it designates the work of interpreting. "In a second sense, Heidegger finds in hermeneutics a means of uncovering the meaning of being for Dasein. And the third sense is the interpretation Dasein as continually making its future possibilities, its future being. Section 31 is important to hermeneutics because there the being of Dasein is said to be understanding. Understanding is the central process of an existing human being. In section 32, titled "Understanding and Interpretation," interpretation builds on understanding. It looks around at the surrounding world and sees things as this or that, always already , never as pure perception. As Heidegger puts it, "The seeing of this sight is always already understanding and interpreting." In other words, there is no pure perception prior to interpretation; there is always the horizon of questioning and interpreting. In section 44, Heidegger argues that truth, too, in its modern forms as statements which are true, is derivative from the deeper processes of understanding and interpreting that are always already going on. But when truth is rightfully defined in connection with being, then it moves into the horizon of fundamental ontology. It is the disclosure of being. This insight is part of what leads him to his view of art, which we will discuss in the next lectur. (shrink)

In reviewing the contents of the first to five speakers, we back up to the United States in writing "real and reasonable method" when the issues faced in: scientific research methods than in the general concept Concept in humanities research methods; and people in the academic literature on the low-order. We first consider how the amount of Dilthey and Heidegger deal with these issues. Ⅰ. Natural sciences and humanities approach argue Dilthey tried to explain the expression of human literature, there (...) is a independent but equally effective method of theoretical foundation. In German, Geisteswissenschaften range widely from the arts and sociology. The rise of hermeneutics, Dilthey, in his famous thesis, the mean deep to begin with Homer to explain the hope臘who traveled through Roman times and hope臘. However, Dilthey still seek to achieve "universal and effective " results, which makes him turn to the scientific method. Heidegger's teacher, Hu stopper Seoul , rather than with the mathematical background of the humanities, to use phenomenology to philosophy as a "rigorous science ". Conversely, neural science and philosophy with Heidegger humanities background. This makes Heidegger's hermeneutics of Dilthey and his interest. Heidegger was a critic of scientific objectivity, and even have commentaries description: "Scientists do not think" . His search for the source of the problem of modernity to Descartes who, because of Cartesian subjectivity of the world as a projection. Ⅱ. Up to the U.S. desire to restore the respect for human studies of up to U.S. desire to restore respect for the human sciences, but he does not find the key steps in Dilthey, but in Heidegger's "Art works of origin >. Ⅲ. Up to the United States after the Western aesthetic of Kant's critique of Gadamer to use his real art of management for the new hole to criticize the police after Kant the aesthetic development. This is the "true management and methods" section of the important elements. Ⅳ. Heidegger in breakthrough in the art lecture on Heidegger, providing up to restore the emphasis on the United States who required breakthrough in the planning literature. Ⅴ. Methods exist regardless hermeneutics the implications of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics can be seen as a new understanding of the analysis, so that his exposure to critical science and humanities in the nature of the two methods. Ⅵ. The universality of hermeneutics Gadamer in the "real and reasonable method" after the publication of a thesis advocated, he analyzed the universality of understanding can be applied in science and humanities in the training. Regardless of this guide provide us some background to explore the "real management and methods" in the 14 key concepts, these concepts will be in the seventh, eight speakers presented. After reviewing the content of Lectures 1-5, we turn to the issue that Gadamer was confronting when he wrote Truth and Method: the general sense of the superiority of scientific methods of research over humanistic methods, and the lower status of the humanities in academe . We first consider this issue in Dilthey and Heidegger. Section Ⅰ: The Contest over Methods in the Natural and Human Sciences Dilthey attempted to articulate a separate but equally valid methodological basis for interpretation in the humanities. In Germany, the range of the Geisteswissenschaften was wide, from art to sociology. In his famous essay on the rise of hermeneutics, Dilthey started, significantly, with the Greek interpreters of Homer and moved up through Greek and Roman times. Nevertheless, Dilthey was still seeking to achieve "universally valid" results , which moved him in the direction of scientific methods. Heidegger's teacher, Husserl, had a background in mathematics rather than the humanities and wanted to use phenomenology to make philosophy into a "rigorous science." Heidegger, in contrast, had a humanistic background in theology and philosophy and especially Greek philosophy. This caused him to be interested in Dilthey and his hermeneutics. Heidegger was a critic of scientific objectivity and once even remarked, "The scientist does not think." He traced the problems of modernity back to Descartes, who saw the world as a projection of his subjectivity. Section Ⅱ. Gadamer's Desire to Restore Respect to the Human Studies Gadamer desired to restore re spect to the human sciences, but he found the decisive step for doing so not in Dilthey but in Heidegger's The Origin of the Work of Art. Section Ⅲ: Gadamer's critique of Western aesthetics since Kant Gadamer used his new insight into the truth of art to criticize the development of aesthetics since Kant. This is a major element in the first section of Truth and Method. Section Ⅳ: Heidegger's Breakthrough in "The Origin of the Artwork" Heidegger's lectures on art offered Gadamer the breakthrough he needed in his project of restoring respect to the humanities. Section Ⅴ: The Implications of an Ontological Hermeneutics for Method Gadamer's new philosophical hermeneutics as an analysis of understanding put him in a position to criticize method per se in both the sciences and humanities. Section Ⅵ: The Universality of Hermeneutics In an essay published after Truth and Method Gadamer moved toward asserting the universality of his analysis of understanding as applying both to scientific disciplines and to the humanities. Understanding here was understanding universally, in general, in all respects. With this introduction we have some background for exploring the fourteen key concepts in Truth and Method itself that will be presented in lectures 7 and 8. (shrink)

This content is divided into four parts: Ⅰ. Hermeneutics understand the primacy of process Ⅱ. He Mies and the hermeneutics of meaning nervous Ⅲ. For Paul • Lui Siegel of the interpretation, such as "today thinking of cross junctions. "interpretation of two types: exposed shield and suspicion Ⅳ. Gadamer hermeneutics today, some aspects related There are four main parts in the text: Ⅰ. On the Primacy of the Understanding Process in Hermeneutics. Ⅱ. The God Hermes and the Meaning of Hermeneutics (...) Ⅲ. Paul Ricoeur on interpretation as "the crossroads of thinking today". Two kinds of hermeneutics : Disclosure and Suspicion. Ⅳ. Some Dimensions of the Relevance of Gadamer's hermeneutics today. (shrink)

Disagreement is a common feature of a social world. For various reasons, however, we sometimes need to resolve a disagreement into a single set of opinions. This can be achieved by pooling the opinions of individuals that make up the group. This Element provides an opinionated survey on some ways of pooling opinions: linear pooling, multiplicative pooling (including geometric), and pooling through imprecise probabilities. While this Element gives significant attention to the axiomatic approach in evaluating pooling strategies, it also evaluates (...) them in terms of the epistemic and practical goals they might meet. In doing so, this Element connects opinion pooling to some philosophical problems in social epistemology and the philosophy of action, illuminating different perspectives one might take when figuring out how to pool opinions for a given purpose. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

Elephants show a rich social organization and display a number of unusual traits. In this paper, we analyse reports collected over a thirty-five year period, describing behaviour that has the potential to reveal signs of empathic understanding. These include coalition formation, the offering of protection and comfort to others, retrieving and 'babysitting' calves, aiding individuals that would otherwise have difficulty in moving, and removing foreign objects attached to others. These records demonstrate that an elephant is capable of diagnosing animacy and (...) goal directedness, and is able to understand the physical competence, emotional state and intentions of others, when they differ from its own. We argue that an empathic understanding of others is the simplest explanation of these abilities, and discuss reasons why elephants appear to show empathy more than other non-primate species. (shrink)

"Originally published in 2010 by University of Queensland Press.".

Since Freud, clinicians have understood that disturbing memories contribute to psychopathology and that new emotional experiences contribute to therapeutic change. Yet, controversy remains about what is truly essential to bring about psychotherapeutic change. Mounting evidence from empirical studies suggests that emotional arousal is a key ingredient in therapeutic change in many modalities. In addition, memory seems to play an important role but there is a lack of consensus on the role of understanding what happened in the past in bringing about (...) therapeutic change. The core idea of this paper is that therapeutic change in a variety of modalities, including behavioral therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, emotion-focused therapy, and psychodynamic psychotherapy, results from the updating of prior emotional memories through a process of reconsolidation that incorporates new emotional experiences. We present an integrated memory model with three interactive components – autobiographical (event) memories, semantic structures, and emotional responses – supported by emerging evidence from cognitive neuroscience on implicit and explicit emotion, implicit and explicit memory, emotion-memory interactions, memory reconsolidation, and the relationship between autobiographical and semantic memory. We propose that the essential ingredients of therapeutic change include: (1) reactivating old memories; (2) engaging in new emotional experiences that are incorporated into these reactivated memories via the process of reconsolidation; and (3) reinforcing the integrated memory structure by practicing a new way of behaving and experiencing the world in a variety of contexts. The implications of this new, neurobiologically grounded synthesis for research, clinical practice, and teaching are discussed. (shrink)

How are group-based identities related to intergroup conflict? When and how do ethnic, religious, and national identities lead to oppression, violence, rebellion, war, mass-murder, and genocide? How do intergroup conflicts change people's identities? How might social identity be harnessed in the service of reducing conflict between groups? The chapters in this book present a sophisticated and detailed interdisciplinary analysis of the most topical and fundamental issues involved in understanding identity and conflict.

Elephants show a rich social organization and display a number of unusual traits. In this paper, we analyse reports collected over a thirty-five year period, describing behaviour that has the potential to reveal signs of empathic understanding. These include coalition formation, the offering of protection and comfort to others, retrieving and 'babysitting' calves, aiding individuals that would otherwise have difficulty in moving, and removing foreign objects attached to others. These records demonstrate that an elephant is capable of diagnosing animacy and (...) goal directedness, and is able to understand the physical competence, emotional state and intentions of others, when they differ from its own. We argue that an empathic understanding of others is the simplest explanation of these abilities, and discuss reasons why elephants appear to show empathy more than other non-primate species. (shrink)

Since its inception, experimental social psychology has arguably been of two minds about the nature and role of theory. Contemporary social psychology's experimental approach has been strongly informed by the “nomological-deductive” approach of Carl Hempel in tandem with the “hypothetico-deducive” approach of Karl Popper. Social psychology's commitment to this hybrid model of science has produced at least two serious obstacles to more fruitful theorizing about human experience: the problem of situational specificity, and the manifest impossibility of formulating meaningful general laws (...) of human social behavior. It is argued that a social psychology based on the search for this kind of lawfulness, under the auspices of either a strict or loose interpretation of the largely Hempelian model, is ultimately unworkable. An alternative approach to social psychology that is attentive both to the need for understanding individual situations and behaviors and to the need for generalized understanding of actual human behaviors is offered. This approach is grounded in the hermeneutic tradition. (shrink)

The traditional legal verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity as well as the more recent verdict of guilty but mentally ill rest on often unquestioned epistemological assumptions about human behavior and its causes, unjustified reliance on forensic psychiatrists, and questionable, if not deplorable ethical standards. This paper offers a critique of legal perspectives on insanity, historical and current, based on the altermative epistemological and ethical assumptions of Thomas S. Szasz. In addition, we examine Szasz''s unique rhetorical analysis of (...) mental illness and its implications for forensic psychiatry. (shrink)

If we set aside the questions of Heidegger’s (mis)translation of Aristotle, Vardoulakis’s diagnosis of Heidegger’s mistake still is pressing and far-reaching. The mistake Vardoulakis identifies arises from a preference for ‘ineffectual’ activity over ends-directed activity in Heidegger’s thought. Vardoulakis’s argument is that even phronesis is ends-directed and it is only because of this that phronesis leads not just to doing something well but to doing something well for the sake of the good. The emphasis on the ineffectual turns us away (...) from a form of calculation in which ends, means, and their relation are in question. (shrink)

This article seeks to explain the correspondence between human intelligibility and that of the physical world by synthesizing the contributions of Jean Ladrière. Ladrière shows that the objectification function of formal symbolism in mathematics as an artificial language has operative power acquired through algorithm to represent physical reality. In physical theories, mathematics relates to observations through theoretic and empirical languages mutually interacting in a methodological circle, and nonmathematical anticipatory intention guides mathematical algorithmic exploration. Ladrière reasons that mathematics can make the (...) physical world comprehensible because of the presence of a rational principle in both kinds of intelligibility. (shrink)

According to the PubMed resource from the U.S. National Library of Medicine, over 750,000 scientific articles have been published in the ~5000 biomedical journals worldwide in the year 2007 alone. The vast majority of these publications include results from hypothesis-driven experimentation in overlapping biomedical research domains. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of information being generated by the biomedical research enterprise has made it virtually impossible for investigators to stay aware of the latest findings in their domain of interest, let alone to (...) be able to assimilate and mine data from related investigations for purposes of meta-analysis. While computers have the potential for assisting investigators in the extraction, management and analysis of these data, information contained in the traditional journal publication is still largely unstructured, free-text descriptions of study design, experimental application and results interpretation, making it difficult for computers to gain access to the content of what is being conveyed without significant manual intervention. In order to circumvent these roadblocks and make the most of the output from the biomedical research enterprise, a variety of related standards in knowledge representation are being developed, proposed and adopted in the biomedical community. In this chapter, we will explore the current status of efforts to develop minimum information standards for the representation of a biomedical experiment, ontologies composed of shared vocabularies assembled into subsumption hierarchical structures, and extensible relational data models that link the information components together in a machine-readable and human-useable framework for data mining purposes. (shrink)

Previous work suggests that threat-related stimuli are stored to a greater degree in working memory compared to neutral stimuli. However, most of this research has focused on stimuli with physically salient threat attributes, failing to account for how a “neutral” stimulus that has acquired threat-related associations through differential aversive conditioning influences working memory. The current study examined how differentially conditioned safe and threat stimuli are stored in working memory relative to a novel, non-associated stimuli. Participants completed a differential fear conditioning (...) task followed by a change detection task consisting of three conditions across two loads. Results revealed individuals successfully learned to distinguishing CS+ from CS– conditions during the differential aversive conditioning task. Our working memory outcomes indicated successful load manipulation effects, but no statistically significant differences in accuracy, response time, or Pashler’s K measures of working memory capacity between CS+, CS–, or N conditions. However, we observed significantly reduced RT difference scores for the CS+ compared to CS– condition, indicating greater RT differences between the CS+ and N condition vs. the CS– and N condition. These findings suggest that differentially conditioned stimuli have little impact on behavioral outcomes of working memory compared to novel stimuli that had not been associated with previous safe of aversive outcomes, at least in healthy populations. (shrink)

Mental disorders such as depression and anxiety are increasingly common. Yet there are too few specialists to offer help to everyone, and negative attitudes to psychological problems and their treatment discourage people from seeking it. As a result, many people never receive help for these problems. The Oxford Guide to Low Intensity CBT Interventions marks a turning point in the delivery of psychological treatments for people with depression and anxiety. Until recently, the only form of psychological intervention available for patients (...) with depression and anxiety was traditional one-to-one 60 minute session therapy - usually with private practitioners for those patients who could afford it. Now Low Intensity CBT Interventions are starting to revolutionize mental health care by providing cost effective psychological therapies which can reach the vast numbers of people with depression and anxiety who did not previously have access to effective psychological treatment. The Oxford Guide to Low Intensity CBT Interventions is the first book to provide a comprehensive guide to Low Intensity CBT interventions. It brings together researchers and clinicians from around the world who have led the way in developing evidence-based low intensity CBT treatments. It charts the plethora of new ways that evidence-based low intensity CBT can be delivered: for instance, guided self-help, groups, advice clinics, brief GP interventions, internet-based or book-based treatment and prevention programs, with supported provided by phone, email, internet, sms or face-to-face. These new treatments require new forms of service delivery, new ways of communicating, new forms of training and supervision, and the development of new workforces. They involve changing systems and routine practice, and adapting interventions to particular community contexts. The Oxford Guide to Low Intensity CBT Interventions is a state-of-the-art handbook, providing low intensity practitioners, supervisors, managers commissioners of services and politicians with a practical, easy-to-read guide - indispensible reading for those who wish to understand and anticipate future directions in health service provision and to broaden access to cost-effective evidence-based psychological therapies. (shrink)

A provocative survey of interdisciplinary challenges to the concept of dualism.

Milton Friedman has argued that corporations have no responsibility to society beyond that of obeying the law and maximizing profits for shareholders. Individuals may have social responsibilities according to Friedman, but not corporations.When executives make contributions to address social problems in the name of the corporation, they are doing so with other people''s (shareholders'') money. The responsibility of corporate executives is a fiduciary one, to serve as an agent for the corporation''s shareholders, and to uphold shareholders'' trust, which requires executives (...) to maximize the return to their shareholders, who can then, if they choose, contribute their own money to worthy causes. (shrink)

According to scholars as influential as Hans Urs von Balthasar, Eric Voegelin and Cyril O'Regan, what was once rejected as an esoteric second century Christian heresy, has, and indeed continues to, exert a significant amount of influence over modern philosophy and theology in the form of ancient Gnosticism. While a variety of major studies have applied this hermeneutical lens to evaluate and better grasp Hegel's philosophical system, very few have sought to interpret Schelling's philosophy in this manner, when there seems (...) to be ample evidence to suggest that Schelling consciously adopted Gnostic philosophy, particularly Valentinian speculation, alongside other theosophic proposals, when constructing his own ideas. And, given the rise of theological systems, notably from the East, although not exclusively, in the guise of Sergius Bulgakov, that are heavily indebted to Schelling and are currently exerting a notable influence on contemporary Anglophone systematic theology (theologians such as John Milbank), it would seem beneficial for such a study to be conducted to better grasp certain trends in current, mainstream, theological proposals. (shrink)