Fitting the Mind to the World explores the brain's remarkable capacity to adapt to its current visual environment. Leading vision researchers explore how visual experience alters the adult brain, fitting the mind to the world, and ensuring the efficient coding of sensory signals. They demonstrate how this plasticity affects every aspect of our visual experience, from the perception of movement and colour, to the perception of subtle, social and emotional information in human faces.

British Idealists sought to come to terms with, amongst many other things, the existence of knowledge and the development of the evolutionary and geological sciences such as they were expressed in the writings of the likes of Herbert Spencer, George Lewes and William Clifford. Different British Idealists held different attitudes to scientific evolutionary theories. Here, I shall examine the approach of the most profound member of the school — Thomas Hill Green.

British Idealists sought to come to terms with, amongst many other things, the existence of knowledge and the development of the evolutionary and geological sciences such as they were expressed in the writings of the likes of Herbert Spencer, George Lewes and William Clifford. Different British Idealists held different attitudes to scientific evolutionary theories. Here, I shall examine the approach of the most profound member of the school — Thomas Hill Green.

People are motivated by shared social values that, when held with moral conviction, can serve as compelling mandates capable of facilitating support for ideological violence. The current study examined this dark side of morality by identifying specific cognitive and neural mechanisms associated with beliefs about the appropriateness of sociopolitical violence, and determining the extent to which the engagement of these mechanisms was predicted by moral convictions. Participants reported their moral convictions about a variety of sociopolitical issues prior to undergoing functional (...) MRI scanning. During scanning, they were asked to evaluate the appropriateness of violent protests that were ostensibly congruent or incongruent with their views about sociopolitical issues. Complementary univariate and multivariate analytical strategies comparing neural responses to congruent and incongruent violence identified neural mechanisms implicated in processing salience and in the encoding of subjective value. As predicted, neuro-hemodynamic response was modulated parametrically by individuals’ beliefs about the appropriateness of congruent relative to incongruent sociopolitical violence in ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and by moral conviction in ventral striatum. Overall moral conviction was predicted by neural response to congruent relative to incongruent violence in amygdala. Together, these findings indicate that moral conviction about sociopolitical issues serves to increase their subjective value, overriding natural aversion to interpersonal harm. (shrink)

As humans, we want to live meaningfully, yet we are often driven by impulse. In Religion and the Meaning of Life, Williams investigates this paradox – one with profound implications. Delving into felt realities pertinent to meaning, such as boredom, trauma, suicide, denial of death, and indifference, Williams describes ways to acquire meaning and potential obstacles to its acquisition. This book is unique in its willingness to transcend a more secular stance and explore how one's belief in God may be (...) relevant to life's meaning. Religion and the Meaning of Life's interdisciplinary approach makes it useful to philosophers, religious studies scholars, psychologists, students, and general readers alike. The insights from this book have profound real-world applications – they can transform how readers search for meaning and, consequently, how readers see and exist in the world. (shrink)

Religion and the Rebel, Colin Wilson's second volume from his internationally acclaimed Outsider Cycle, is a casebook about and for rebels. With inspirational wisdom and engaging clarity, Wilson shows us that the purpose of religion, of our personal relationship with the sacred and the all-pervading mystery of existence, is to expand our consciousness and intensify our sense of life. Wilson heroically claims that the power to create meaning resides in our mental and spiritual discipline. Examining the lives and works (...) of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Rilke, Shaw, Pascal, Swedenborg, Rimbaud and Scott Fitzgerald, among others, Wilson explores the main existential questions and shows how these remarkable writers, scientists, philosophers and poets faced their need for transcendence. Like many of us, they were driven by a need to become more than men. Religion and the Rebel is an outstanding and enjoyable book that combines philosophical analysis, historical interest, and religious insight. (shrink)

This book is an eye-opening account of transnational advocacy, not by environmental and rights groups, but by conservative activists. Mobilizing around diverse issues, these networks challenge progressive foes across borders and within institutions. In these globalized battles, opponents struggle as much to advance their own causes as to destroy their rivals. Deploying exclusionary strategies, negative tactics and dissuasive ideas, they aim both to make and unmake policy. In this work, Clifford Bob chronicles combat over homosexuality and gun control in (...) the UN, the Americas, Europe and elsewhere. He investigates the 'Baptist-burqa' network of conservative believers attacking gay rights, and the global gun coalition blasting efforts to control firearms. Bob draws critical conclusions about norms, activists and institutions, and his broad findings extend beyond the culture wars. They will change how campaigners fight, scholars study policy wars, and all of us think about global politics. (shrink)

Political persuasion can express moral respect. In this article, however, I rely on two psychological assumptions to argue that political persuasion is generally prima facie disrespectful: (1) that we maintain our political beliefs largely for non-epistemic, personal reasons and (2) that our political beliefs are connected to our epistemic esteem. Given those assumptions, a persuader can either ignore the relevant personal reasons, explicitly address them, or implicitly address them. Ignoring those reasons, I argue, constitutes prima facie insensitivity. Explicitly addressing them (...) constitutes a form of prima facie incivility. Finally, implicitly addressing them covertly treats those personal reasons as psychological puppet strings, constituting prima facie objectionable manipulation. This prima facie insensitivity, incivility, and manipulation are each prima facie failures of respect, either for the persuadee’s rationality or for their agency. Political persuasion can sometimes be all-things-considered justified, but these moral hazards can produce reasonable guilt, resentment, and blowback. (shrink)

This book presents a clear and critical view of the orthodox logical empiricist tradition, pointing the way to significant developments for the understanding of science both as research and as culture.

ABSTRACT: Abstract Most modern knowledge is not science. The physical sciences have successfully validated theories to infer they can be used universally to predict in previously unexperienced circumstances. According to the conventional conception of science such inferences are falsified by a single irregular outcome. And verification is by the scientific method which requires strict regularity of outcome and establishes cause and effect. -/- Medicine, medical research and many “soft” sciences are concerned with individual people in complex heterogeneous populations. These populations (...) cannot be tested to demonstrate strict regularity of outcome in every individual. Neither randomised controlled trials nor observational studies in medicine are science in the conventional conception. Establishing and using medical and other “soft science” theories cannot be scientific. It requires conceptually different means: requiring expert judgement applying all available evidence in the relevant available factual matrix. -/- The practice of medicine is observational. Prediction of outcomes for the individual requires professional expertise applying available medical knowledge and evidence. Expertise in any profession can only be acquired through experience. Prior cases are the fundament of knowledge and expertise in medicine. Case histories, studies and series can provide knowledge of extremely high reliability applicable to establishing reliable general theories and falsifying others. Their collation, study and analysis should be a priority in medicine. Their devaluation as evidence, the failure to apply their lessons, the devaluation of expert professional judgement and the attempt to emulate the scientific method are all historic errors in the theory and practice of modern medicine. (shrink)

This book develops a new naturalist theory of reason and scientific knowledge from a synthesis of philosophy and the new sciences of complex adaptive systems.

In this collection of essays, Clifford Geertz explores the nature of his anthropological work in relation to a broader public, serving as the foremost spokesperson of his generation of scholars, those who came of age after World War II. ...

Information is the fourth core element of public health legal preparedness and of legal preparedness for public health emergencies specifically. Clearly, the creation, transmittal, and application of information are vital to all public health endeavors. The critical significance of information grows exponentially as the complexity and scale of public threats increase.Only a small body of organized information on public health law existed before the 21st century: a series of landmark books published beginning in 1926 by Tobey, Grad, and Wing ; (...) model public health laws published as early as 1907; systematic reviews of original research studies published in the 1990s; and a small but growing number of articles published in public health journals and law reviews.With the new century came new public health law programs and activities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in public health professional associations, and in numerous non-profit and academic organizations. (shrink)

Colin Morris traces the origin of the concept of the individual, not to the Renaissance where it is popularly assumed to have been invented, but farther back, ...

Many weaknesses of game theory are cured by new models that embody simple cognitive principles, while maintaining the formalism and generality that makes game theory useful. Social preference models can generate team reasoning by combining reciprocation and correlated equilibrium. Models of limited iterated thinking explain data better than equilibrium models do; and they self-repair problems of implausibility and multiplicity of equilibria.

Information is the fourth core element of public health legal preparedness and of legal preparedness for public health emergencies specifically. Clearly, the creation, transmittal, and application of information are vital to all public health endeavors. The critical significance of information grows exponentially as the complexity and scale of public threats increase.Only a small body of organized information on public health law existed before the 21st century: a series of landmark books published beginning in 1926 by Tobey, Grad, and Wing ; (...) model public health laws published as early as 1907; systematic reviews of original research studies published in the 1990s; and a small but growing number of articles published in public health journals and law reviews.With the new century came new public health law programs and activities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in public health professional associations, and in numerous non-profit and academic organizations. (shrink)

In What the Body Commands, Colin Klein proposes and defends a novel theory of pain. Klein argues that pains are imperative; they are sensations with a content, and that content is a command to protect the injured part of the body. He terms this view "imperativism about pain," and argues that imperativism can account for two puzzling features of pain: its strong motivating power and its uninformative nature. Klein argues that the biological purpose of pain is homeostatic; like hunger (...) and thirst, pain helps solve a challenge to bodily integrity. It does so by motivating you to act in ways that help the body recover. If you obey pain's command, you get better. He develops his account to handle a variety of pain phenomena and applies it to solve a number of historically puzzling cases. Klein's intent is to defend the imperativist view in a pure form -- without requiring pain to represent facts about the world.Klein presents a model of imperative content showing that intrinsically motivating sensations are best understood as imperatives, and argues that pain belongs to this class. He considers the distinction between pain and suffering; explains how pain motivates; addresses variations among pains; and offers an imperativist account of maladaptive pains, pains that don't appear to hurt, masochism, and why pain feels bad. (shrink)

Wittgenstein famously ended his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Wittgenstein 1922) by writing: "Whereof one cannot speak, one must pass over in silence." (Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.) In that earliest work, Wittgenstein gives no clue about whether this aphorism applied to animal minds, or whether he would have included philosophical discussions about animal minds as among those displaying "the most fundamental confusions (of which the whole of philosophy is full)" (1922, TLP 3.324), but given his later writings on (...) language and thought, it seems a plausible hypothesis. Years later he wrote in the Philosophical Investigations (1968, p. 223) another aphoristic statement: "If a lion could speak, we would not understand him." (Wenn der Löwe sprechen könnte, wir könnten ihn nicht verstehen.) Decades of philosophical discussion about what Wittgenstein meant by these remarks illustrate another point: when philosophers speak, we do not fully understand them. (shrink)

The commentary argues that we cannot be sure that human consciousness has survival value and that in order to understand the origins and, perhaps, the function of consciousness, we should examine the behavioural and neural precursors to consciousness in nonhumans. An example is given of research on the role of context in decisions regarding fleeing from probable predators in the Mongolian gerbil.

The trade in, and private keeping of, reptiles as "pets" raises several ethical concerns regarding animal welfare (associated with handling, storage, transportation, intensive captive breeding, captivity stress, injury, disease, and high premature mortality); public health and safety (associated with zoonotic disease and animal-linked injuries); species conservation and environmental degradation (associated with wild capture); and ecological alteration (associated with invasive alien species). Also, many captive reptiles are fed other animals, raising broader ethical questions. Misperceptions about reptiles by proponents of their captivity (...) mean that these animals are subject to conditions that would likely be considered unacceptable for dogs or cats. (shrink)