Healthcare practitioners are often presented with vulnerable encounters where their professional experience is insufficient when dealing with patients who suffer from illnesses such as chronic pain. How can one otherwise understand chronic pain and develop practices whereby medical healthcare practitioners can experience alternative ways of doing their practice? This essay describes how a group of researchers have, over a number of years, developed improvised participatory theatre as a means of engaging healthcare practitioners, patients and other lay people in situations where (...) it is legitimate to reappraise their practice and reunderstand the nature of an illness such as chronic pain. One conclusion was to consider that it is a relational rather than an individual phenomenon that in turn demands alternative practice. Through iterative workshop processes of improvised theatre, participants are encouraged to experience the vulnerable, the unknown, and the need to be alternatively present when dealing with patients whose situation is imbued with suffering. (shrink)

High atop cascading waterfalls and deep within the lush green depths of the valleys, Swiss photographer Ruedi Homberger has for more than twenty years captured in photographs the majestic beauty of eastern Alaska's Wrangell Mountain range. In addition to summiting some of the Wrangells' loftiest peaks, Homberger has in recent years incorporated a technically challenging new approach into his work. Flying above the mountains in a small plane, Homberger literally goes to new heights to reveal a series of stunning aerial (...) views. The first book-length collection of photographs focusing exclusively on the Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park and Preserve, My Wrangell Mountains offers readers a rare opportunity to “stand among the giants.” Included in this magnificent oversized volume are nearly three hundred full-color photographs and an accompanying selection of sketches by award-winning illustrator Jon Van Zyle. (shrink)

"Feminism, Theory and the Politics of Difference" looks at the question of difference across the full spectrum of feminist theory from liberal, radical, lesbian ...

Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations (UN), political leaders and health professionals to recognise that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackled together to preserve health and avoid catastrophe. This overall environmental crisis is now so severe as to be a global health emergency. The world is currently responding to the climate crisis and the nature crisis as if they were separate challenges. This is a dangerous mistake. The 28th Conference of (...) the Parties (COP) on climate change is about to be held in Dubai while the 16th COP on biodiversity is due to be held in Turkey in 2024. The research communities that provide the evidence for the two COPs are unfortunately largely separate, but they were brought together for a workshop in 2020 when they concluded that: ‘Only by considering climate and biodiversity as parts of the same... (shrink)

Eight prominent historians and social scientists give their perspectives on the fate of Marxist approaches to history and the direction of the discipline in coming decades. The volume offers rigorous and approachable analysis from several political and intellectual positions and will be an important contribution to current historical debates.

A timely, well-grounded analysis that reveals an inconvenient truth: we can't save capitalism and save the planet.

The power of algorithms has become a familiar topic in society, media, and the social sciences. It is increasingly common to argue that, for instance, algorithms automate inequality, that they are biased black boxes that reproduce racism, or that they control our money and information. Implicit in many of these discussions is that algorithms are permeated with normativities, and that these normativities shape society. The aim of this editorial is double: First, it contributes to a more nuanced discussion about algorithms (...) by discussing how we, as social scientists, think about algorithms in relation to five theoretical ideal types. For instance, what does it mean to go under the hood of the algorithm and what does it mean to stay above it? Second, it introduces the contributions to this special theme by situating them in relation to these five ideal types. By doing this, the editorial aims to contribute to an increased analytical awareness of how algorithms are theorized in society and culture. The articles in the special theme deal with algorithms in different settings, ranging from farming, schools, and self-tracking to AIDS, nuclear power plants, and surveillance. The contributions thus explore, both theoretically and empirically, different settings where algorithms are intertwined with normativities. (shrink)

We use hyperbolic towers to answer some model-theoretic questions around the generic type in the theory of free groups. We show that all the finitely generated models of this theory realize the generic type $p_{0}$ but that there is a finitely generated model which omits $p^{}_{0}$. We exhibit a finitely generated model in which there are two maximal independent sets of realizations of the generic type which have different cardinalities. We also show that a free product of homogeneous groups is (...) not necessarily homogeneous. (shrink)

From gender and identity to welfare and consumerism, sociology is the study of how societies are organized and what helps them function or go wrong. Questions posed include: What is my "tribe"? Why do people commit crimes? Who decides if someone has a mental illness? What's work for? Does aid do any good? Heads Up Sociology explores these fascinating questions and more.

Criminal offenders may be offered to participate in voluntary rehabilitation programs aiming at correcting undesirable behaviour, as a condition of early release. Behavioural treatment may include direct intervention into the central nervous system (CNS). This article discusses under which circumstances voluntary rehabilitation by CNS intervention is justified. It is argued that although the context of voluntary rehabilitation is a coercive circumstance, consent may still be effective, in the sense that it can meet formal criteria for informed consent. Further, for a (...) consent to be normatively valid (“take the wronging out of the act”) under a coercive circumstance, the subject to be treated must (1) have the sovereign authority to consent, and (2) the offer-giver must be in the right normative position to make the offer. While I argue that subjects do have the sovereign authority to consent to treatment, I also argue that inappropriate offers yield invalid consents. Considerations on inappropriate offers should therefore inform which kinds of CNS intervention-based rehabilitation schemes the state may propose as part of the criminal justice system. Yet as I conclude in this paper, while there are some intrinsic constraints on voluntary rehabilitation programs, the main constraints on voluntary rehabilitation are likely to be contingent overriders. However, CNS intervention is not ruled out as such in the context of voluntary rehabilitation. (shrink)

Increasing evidence suggests that psychedelic experiences, undergone in controlled conditions, can have various durable psychological benefits. One such benefit is reductions in fear of death, which have been attested in both psychiatric patients and healthy people. This paper addresses the question: how, exactly, do psychedelic experiences reduce fear of death? It argues, against some prominent proposals, that they do so mainly by promoting non-physicalist metaphysical beliefs. This conclusion has implications for two broader debates: one about the mechanisms of psychedelic therapy, (...) and one about the potential non-medical uses of psychedelics for the alleviation of existential angst in psychiatrically healthy people. On the first count, the paper argues that the role of metaphysical belief change in fear of death supports the “Relaxed Beliefs Under Psychedelics” (REBUS) model of psychedelic therapy over alternative accounts. On the second count, the paper argues that the role of metaphysical belief change undermines the proposed use of psychedelics in the “neuroexistentialist” project of naturalizing spirituality. The best available evidence suggests that when psychedelic experiences reduce existential angst and restore a sense of meaning in life, they do so primarily by persuading people of the falsity of a broadly naturalistic worldview, and thus do not help reconcile people to the truth of such a worldview. (shrink)

For the past few decades postmodernism has been at the center of debates about philosophy, history, culture, and politics, including feminist theory and politics. Its theoretical rationale can be found in poststructuralist modes of social and cultural analysis and its concerns are echoed in postmodern cultural practices. The range of theories broadly described as “postmodern” includes writers as diverse as Lyotard, Baudrillard, Derrida, Lacan and Foucault. Among women theorists Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray have been particularly important.

Recent debates in psychopathy studies have articulated concerns about false-positives in assessment and research sampling. These are pressing concerns for research progress, since scientific quality depends on sample quality, that is, if we wish to study psychopathy we must be certain that the individuals we study are, in fact, psychopaths. Thus, if conventional assessment tools yield substantial false-positives, this would explain why central research is laden with discrepancies and nonreplicable findings. This paper draws on moral psychology in order to develop (...) tentative theory-driven exclusion criteria applicable in research sampling. Implementing standardized procedures to discriminate between research participants has the potential to yield more homogenous and discrete samples, a vital prerequisite for research progress in etiology, epidemiology, and treatment strategies. (shrink)

'dealing with a special problem and limited in its proof. . .shows how Aristotelian Bacon was in his methodology'; Vickers 1992, 505 dislikes intensely.

Indigenous ethics and feminist care ethics offer a range of related ideas and tools for environmental ethics. These ethics delve into deep connections and moral commitments between nonhumans and humans to guide ethical forms of environmental decision making and environmental science. Indigenous and feminist movements such as the Mother Earth Water Walk and the Green Belt Movement are ongoing examples of the effectiveness of on-the-ground environmental care ethics. Indigenous ethics highlight attentive caring for the intertwined needs of humans and nonhumans (...) within interdependent communities. Feminist environmental care ethics emphasize the importance of empowering communities to care for themselves and the social and ecological communities in which their lives and interests are interwoven. The gendered, feminist, historical, and anticolonial dimensions of care ethics, indigenous ethics, and other related approaches provide rich ground for rethinking and reclaiming the nature and depth of diverse relationships as the fabric of social and ecological being. (shrink)

The social sciences lack concepts and theories for an understanding of what new information technology is doing to our society. The article sketches the outlines of a broad historical and comparative approach to this issue: ‘an anthropology of information technology’. At the base is the idea ofexternalisation of knowledge as a historical process. Three main epochs are characterised by externalisation of knowledge through a) spoken language and a social organisation of specialists, b) writing and c) computer programming. The impact of (...) expert systems on learning is also discussed. (shrink)

This book provides a systematic analysis of many common argumentation schemes and a compendium of 96 schemes. The study of these schemes, or forms of argument that capture stereotypical patterns of human reasoning, is at the core of argumentation research. Surveying all aspects of argumentation schemes from the ground up, the book takes the reader from the elementary exposition in the first chapter to the latest state of the art in the research efforts to formalize and classify the schemes, outlined (...) in the last chapter. It provides a systematic and comprehensive account, with notation suitable for computational applications that increasingly make use of argumentation schemes. (shrink)

In their recent article “A Hierarchy of Classical and Paraconsistent Logics”, Eduardo Barrio, Federico Pailos and Damien Szmuc present novel and striking results about meta-inferential validity in various three valued logics. In the process, they have thrown open the door to a hitherto unrecognized domain of non-classical logics with surprising intrinsic properties, as well as subtle and interesting relations to various familiar logics, including classical logic. One such result is that, for each natural number n, there is a logic which (...) agrees with classical logic on tautologies, inferences, meta-inferences, meta-meta-inferences, meta-meta-...-meta-inferences, but that disagrees with classical logic on n + 1-meta-inferences. They suggest that this shows that classical logic can only be characterized by defining its valid inferences at all orders. In this article, I invoke some simple symmetric generalizations of BPS’s results to show that the problem is worse than they suggest, since in fact there are logics that agree with classical logic on inferential validity to all orders but still intuitively differ from it. I then discuss the relevance of these results for truth theory and the classification problem. (shrink)

We are addressing this letter to the editors of Philosophical Psychology after reading an article they decided to publish in the recent vol. 33, issue 1. The article is by Nathan Cofnas and is entitled “Research on group differences in intelligence: A defense of free inquiry” (2020). The purpose of our letter is not to invite Cofnas’s contribution into a broader dialogue, but to respectfully voice our concerns about the decision to publish the manuscript, which, in our opinion, fails to (...) meet a range of academic quality standards usually expected of academic publications. (shrink)

Revisionists claim that the retributive intuitions informing our responsibility-attributing practices are unwarranted under determinism, not only because they are false, but because if we are all victims of causal luck, it is unfair to treat one another as if we are deserving of moral and legal sanctions. One revisionist strategy recommends a deflationary concept of moral responsibility, and that we justify punishment in consequentialist rather than retributive terms. Another revisionist strategy recommends that we eliminate all concepts of guilt, blame and (...) punishment, and treat dangerous criminals as we treat people with contagious diseases. I argue against both strong and moderate revisionism that it is not unfair to hold persons desert -entailingly responsible insofar as they take an interest in being treated as appraisable, and that it is unfair to persons not to treat them as desert -entailingly responsible contrary to their interests in being treated as such. The interest-based argument, I conclude, give us a justification for communicating retributive attitudes, but may still require a weak revision of our retributive practices, in the direction of a communicative theory of punishment. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Phenomenological Reflections on Cycling Extended Embodiment – Cycling Thoughts Campagnolo Ti Amo (I Love You) A Multiple Bombardment of the Senses Settling of Accounts – In the Long Run It Is Impossible to Cheat Cycle Speech A Trembling Experience A Descent – Living Up to Its Reputation A Collective Shiver Notes.

This article argues for a revised best system account of laws of nature. David Lewis’s original BSA has two main elements. On the one hand, there is the Humean base, which is the totality of particular matters of fact that obtain in the history of the universe. On the other hand, there is what I call the ‘nomic formula’, which is a particular operation that gets applied to the Humean base in order to output the laws of nature. My revised (...) account focuses on this latter element of the view. Lewis conceives of the nomic formula as a balance of simplicity and strength, but I argue that this is a mistake. Instead, I motivate and develop a different proposal for the standards that figure into the nomic formula, and I suggest a rationale for why these should be the correct standards. Specifically, I argue that the nomic formula should be conceived as a collection of desiderata designed to generate principles that are predictively useful to creatures like us. The resulting view—which I call the ‘best predictive system’ account of laws—is thus able to explain why scientists are interested in discovering the laws, and it also gives rise to laws with the sorts of features that we find in actual scientific practice 1Introduction2The LOPP3A Problem with Lewis's Formula4A Pragmatic Account of the Nomic Formula 4.1Informative dynamics4.2Wide applicability4.3Spatial locality4.4Temporal locality4.5Spatial, temporal, and rotational symmetries4.6Predictively useful properties4.7Simplicity4.8Recap5 Conclusion. (shrink)

Researchers have proposed that blocking facial feedback via glabellar-region botulinum toxin injections can reduce depression. Random-effects meta-analyses of studies that administered GBTX...

This volume is both a state-of-the-art display of current thinking on second language development as a complex system. It is also a tribute to Diane Larsen-Freeman for her decades of intellectual leadership in the academic disciplines of applied linguistics and second language acquisition. The chapters therein range from theoretical expositions to methodological analyses, pedagogical proposals, and conceptual frameworks for future research. In a balanced and in-depth manner, the authors provide a comprehensive and interdisciplinary understanding of second language development, with (...) a wealth of insights that promise to break the status-quo of current research and take it to exciting new territory. The book will appeal to both seasoned and novice researchers in applied linguistics, second language acquisition, bilingualism, cognitive psychology, and education, as well as to practitioners in second or foreign language teaching of any language. (shrink)

Recent clinical trials show that psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin can be given safely in controlled conditions, and can cause lasting psychological benefits with one or two administrations. Supervised psychedelic sessions can reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and addiction, and improve well-being in healthy volunteers, for months or even years. But these benefits seem to be mediated by "mystical" experiences of cosmic consciousness, which prompts a philosophical concern: do psychedelics cause psychological benefits by inducing false or implausible beliefs about (...) the metaphysical nature of reality? This book is the first scholarly monograph in English devoted to the philosophical analysis of psychedelic drugs. Its central focus is the apparent conflict between the growing use of psychedelics in psychiatry and the philosophical worldview of naturalism. Within the book, Letheby integrates empirical evidence and philosophical considerations in the service of a simple conclusion: this "Comforting Delusion Objection" to psychedelic therapy fails. While exotic metaphysical ideas do sometimes come up, they are not, on closer inspection, the central driver of change in psychedelic therapy. Psychedelics lead to lasting benefits by altering the sense of self, and changing how people relate to their own minds and lives-not by changing their beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality. The upshot is that a traditional conception of psychedelics as agents of insight and spirituality can be reconciled with naturalism (the philosophical position that the natural world is all there is). Controlled psychedelic use can lead to genuine forms of knowledge gain and spiritual growth-even if no Cosmic Consciousness or transcendent divine Reality exists. Philosophy of Psychedelics is an indispensable guide to the literature for researchers already engaged in the field of psychedelic psychiatry, and for researchers-especially philosophers-who want to become acquainted with this increasingly topical field. (shrink)

This paper questions the moral foundations of the equal war-right to kill in international law. Although there seems to be a moral difference between fighting a just and unjust war, this need not reflect on our moral assessment of soldiers, since unjust combatants can be non-culpable by virtue of excuse. Under the aspect of immunity from blame, an equal war-right to kill is upheld, and belligerent equality restored among innocents. It must therefore be proven that innocent threats can be justifiably (...) killed. If this fails, there is nothing about the people who kill and are killed in war that justifies their killing. This leads to a strong presumption against war and to question the notion of just war. Further, there should be an incentive to increase protection of combatants in war. (shrink)

The notion of quality features prominently in contemporary discourse. Numerous ratings, rankings, metrics, auditing, accreditation, benchmarking, smileys, reviews, and international comparisons are all used regularly to capture quality. This book paves the way in exploring the socio-political implications of evaluative statements, with a specific focus on the contribution of the concept of quality to these processes. Drawing on perspectives from the history of ideas, sociology, political science and public management, Dahler-Larsen asks what is the role of quality, and more (...) specifically quality inscriptions, such as measurement? What do they accomplish? And finally, as a consequence of all this, does the term quality make it possible to deal with public issues in a way that lives up to democratic standards? This cross-disciplinary book will be of interest to scholars and students across various fields, including sociology, social epistemology, political science, public policy, and evaluation. (shrink)

Advances in emotion and affective science have yet to translate routinely into psychiatric research and practice. This is unfortunate since emotion and affect are fundamental components of many psychiatric conditions. Rectifying this lack of interdisciplinary integration could thus be a potential avenue for improving psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. In this contribution, we propose and discuss an ontological framework for explicitly capturing the complex interrelations between affective entities and psychiatric disorders, in order to facilitate mapping and integration between affective science and (...) psychiatric diagnostics. We build on and enhance the categorisation of emotion, affect and mood within the previously developed Emotion Ontology, and that of psychiatric disorders in the Mental Disease Ontology. This effort further draws on developments in formal ontology regarding the distinction between normal and abnormal in order to formalize the interconnections. This operational semantic framework is relevant for applications including clarifying psychiatric diagnostic categories, clinical information systems, and the integration and translation of research results across disciplines. (shrink)

One of the main challenges confronting Humean accounts of natural law is that Humean laws appear to be unable to play the explanatory role of laws in scientific practice. The worry is roughly that if the laws are just regularities in the particular matters of fact (as the Humean would have it), then they cannot also explain the particular matters of fact, on pain of circularity. Loewer (2012) has defended Humeanism, arguing that this worry only arises if we fail to (...) distinguish between scientific and metaphysical explanations. However, Lange (2013, 2018) has argued that scientific and metaphysical explanations are linked by a transitivity principle, which would undercut Loewer's defense and re-ignite the circularity worry for the Humean. I argue here that the Humean has antecedent reasons to doubt that there are any systematic connections between scientific and metaphysical explanations. The reason is that the Humean should think that scientific and metaphysical explanation have disparate aims, and therefore that neither form of explanation is beholden to the other in its pronouncements about what explains what. Consequently, the Humean has every reason to doubt that Lange's transitivity principle obtains. (shrink)

The original article was published without an acknowledgment section. The complete acknowledgment section is given.

Music’s sanctioned role in the day-to-day running of the ‘late-modern’ prison is to ensure wellbeing and compliance of prisoners, with most regimes facilitating access to music through the form of radios, cd’s, and cassette players. As a result, music often comes tied to judgements by the regime about prisoners’ conduct, with incentive systems allowing the regime to confiscate earned possessions under certain conditions. In this way, the role of music in prison is often continuous with the mechanisms of carceral control, (...) with its ‘humanising’ or ‘therapeutic’ effects being defined as a luxury to be earned through good behaviour and critical engagement with one’s moral and psychological treatment. By tracing the history of music during the birth of the modern prison in the nineteenth century, this paper asks how music became incorporated into the discourse and technology of the emerging carceral state. Drawing principally on the work of Michel Foucault, this paper seeks to explore the relationship between music and ‘the self’ as it is applied to carceral subjects. Foucault shows how the expansion of the carceral state at the end of the nineteenth century relied on the production of knowledge about the subject through the application of disciplinary techniques. By exploring the construction of the self through the discourse of music at the end of the eighteenth century and in the published works of carceral reformers at the end of the nineteenth century, this paper seeks to explore the role that music played within this period of carceral expansion. The discussion will focus on the ways in which music acts as a conduit for forms of carceral power through its relationship with the self. (shrink)