Several philosophers have discussed informal versions of a "symmetry argument" that seems to show that two rational maximizers will cooperate when they are in a prisoner's dilemma. I present a more precise version of that argument and I argue that it is valid only if some crucial statements are misinterpreted as material conditionals instead of being interpreted correctly as subjunctive conditionals.

Recently there has been a great deal of argument about what justifies references to representational states in explanations of behavior. I discuss Jerry Fodor's claim that it is necessary to ascribe representational states to organisms that respond to "nonnomic properties" of stimuli. Zenon Pylyshyn's (apparently equivalent) claim that it is necessary to ascribe representational states to organisms that respond to "nonprojectable properties" of stimuli and Fodor's claim that an organism's ability to respond to nonnomic properties of stimuli is a criterion (...) of its having representational states. I argue that if Fodor's account of how organisms respond to nonnomic properties of stimuli is correct, we could always replace explanations that appeal to nonnomic properties of stimuli with explanations that appeal only to nomic properties of stimuli. I also argue that, according to Fodor's account, we could not determine whether an organism is responding to nonnomic properties of stimuli unless we already knew whether the explanation of the response includes a reference to a representational state. Thus, given Fodor's account, there is no noncircular way of arguing that it is necessary to ascribe representational states to organisms because they respond to nonnomic properties of stimuli. Finally, I argue that Fodor has not actually provided an account of how organisms respond to nonnomic properties of stimuli and I discuss the prospects of a different strategy for linking the nonnomic properties of stimuli to representational states. (shrink)

In this article, the author examines the seemingly privileged position of technology in current educational thought. The article begins by considering Lewis Mumford’s notion of the myth of the machine and his insistence that only when tool making/using is modified by linguistic symbols, esthetic design, and socially transmitted knowledge does it become a significant contributor to human development. Through a sociohistorical critique, the author establishes a relationship between the ubiquity of the mythos and current educational discourse. The author provides examples (...) from various historical events that have contributed to (a) the tradition of print-based culture, (b) the origins of the mythos of technology, (c) the increasingly popular notion that technology offers apanacea for educational woes, (d) the marginalization of critical discourse in regard to educational technology, and (e) corporate involvement in maintenance of the mythos. (shrink)

The traditional Molinist scheme implies that God is one center of consciousness, knowledge, and will. The person-will paradigm, however, claims there are three centers of consciousness, knowledge, and will in the Godhead. I argue that the Molinist ought to reject the person-will paradigm, and thus reject both monothelitism and social trinitarianism. I begin by presenting standard accounts of Molinism, monothelitism, and social trinitarianism. Then I consider three approaches to reconciling Molinism and the person-will paradigm. I show that each approach is (...) fraught with difficulties. (shrink)

The collection of very large text sources has revolutionized the study of natural language, leading to the development of several models of language learning and distributional semantics that extract sophisticated semantic representations of words based on the statistical redundancies contained within natural language. The models treat knowledge as an interaction of processing mechanisms and the structure of language experience. But language experience is often treated agnostically. We report a distributional semantic analysis that shows written language in fiction books varies appreciably (...) between books from the different genres, books from the same genre, and even books written by the same author. Given that current theories assume that word knowledge reflects an interaction between processing mechanisms and the language environment, the analysis shows the need for the field to engage in a more deliberate consideration and curation of the corpora used in computational studies of natural language processing. (shrink)

Applied Christian Ethics addresses selected themes in Christian social ethics. Part one shows the roots of contributors in the realist school; part two focuses on different levels of the significance of economics for social justice; and part three deals with both existential experience and government policy in war and peace issues.

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

Over 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, which causes more disability than any other medical condition in the United States at a cost of $560–$635 billion per year. Opioid analgesics are frequently used to treat CP. However, long term use of opioids can cause brain changes such as opioid-induced hyperalgesia that, over time, increase pain sensation. Also, opioids fail to treat complex psychological factors that worsen pain-related disability, including beliefs about and emotional responses to pain. Cognitive behavioral therapy can (...) be efficacious for CP. However, CBT generally does not focus on important factors needed for long-term functional improvement, including attainment of personal goals and the psychological flexibility to choose responses to pain. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has been recognized as an effective, non-pharmacologic treatment for a variety of CP conditions. However, little is known about the neurologic mechanisms underlying ACT. We conducted an ACT intervention in women with chronic musculoskeletal pain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected pre- and post-ACT, and changes in functional connectivity were measured using Network-Based Statistics. Behavioral outcomes were measured using validated assessments such as the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire, the Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, and the NIH Toolbox Neuro-QoLTM scales. Results suggest that, following the 4-week ACT intervention, participants exhibited reductions in brain activation within and between key networks including self-reflection, emotion, and cognitive control. These changes in connectivity strength were correlated with changes in behavioral outcomes including decreased depression and pain interference, and increased participation in social roles. This study is one of the first to demonstrate that improved function across the DMN, SN, and FPN may drive the positive outcomes associated with ACT. This study contributes to the emerging evidence supporting the use of neurophysiological indices to characterize treatment effects of alternative and complementary mind-body therapies. (shrink)

The focus of this research concentrated on ascertaining the presence of ethical climate types and the level of analysis from which ethical decisions were based as perceived by lodging managers. In agreement with Victor and Cullen (1987, 1988), ethical work climates are multidimensional and multi-determined. The results of this study indicated that: (a) benevolence is the predominate dimension of ethical climate present in the lodging organization as perceived by lodging managers, and (b) the local level of analysis (e.g. immediate workplace (...) norms and values) is the predominate determinant of ethical decisions in the organization.The implication of this study is that the knowledge gained from understanding that ethical decision making in an organization is multidimensional and multi-determined will foster understanding of ethical decision formation in the organizational context. (shrink)

We review evidence for multifaceted functional specialization of somatosensory information processing, both within and outside classical somatosensory cortex. We argue that the nature of such specialization has not yet been clarified adequately to regard the proposed action/perception dichotomy as being established. However, we believe this is a good working hypothesis that can motivate further work.

The controversies in Bristol, Alder Hey and elsewhere in the UK surrounding the removal and retention of human tissue and organs have led to extensive law reform in all three UK legal systems. This paper reports a short study of the reactions of a range of health professionals to these changes. Three main areas of ethical concern were noted: the balancing of individual rights and social benefit; the efficacy of the new procedures for consent; and the helpfulness for professional practice (...) of the new legislation and regulation. Recognition of these concerns may help in forging a new partnership between professionals and patients and their families. (shrink)

Using the Stroop paradigm, we have previously shown that a specific suggestion can remove or reduce involuntary conflict and alter information processing in highly suggestible individuals . In the present study, we carefully matched less suggestible individuals to HSIs on a number of factors. We hypothesized that suggestion would influence HSIs more than LSIs and reduce the Stroop effect in the former group. As well, we conducted secondary post hoc analyses to examine negative priming – the apparent disruption of the (...) response to a previously-ignored item. Our present findings indicate that suggestion reduces Stroop effects in HSIs. Secondary analyses show that LSIs had an NP effect at baseline and that suggestion influenced the NP condition. Thus, at least in this experimental context, suggestion seems to dampen a deeply-engrained and largely automatic process – reading – by wielding a larger influence on HSIs relative to comparable LSIs. (shrink)

Forming intimate relationships is a fundamental human motive. Emotions play a critical role in intimate relationships—they are central to the development and maintenance of these bonds, and these very bonds can influence both individual and interpersonal emotional dynamics across time. Investigating emotional dynamics in an interpersonal context provides unique insight into the functioning of intimate relationships and, at the same time, provides a window into the interdependence of partners’ daily experiences. Reviewing a selection of the literature involving emotional dynamics in (...) intimate relationships, we explore how intimate relationships shape partner’s emotional experiences and the implications this may have for their relationship across time. (shrink)

The so-called Disability Paradox arises from the apparent tension between the popular view that disability leads to low well-being and the relatively high life-satisfaction reports of disabled people. Our aim in this essay is to make some progress toward dissolving this alleged paradox by exploring the relationship between disability and various “goods of life”—that is, components of a life that typically make a person’s life go better for her. We focus on four widely recognized goods of life (happiness, rewarding relationships, (...) knowledge, achievement) and four common types of disability (sensory, mobility, intellectual, and social) and systematically examine the extent to which the four disability types are in principle compatible with obtaining the four goods of life. Our findings suggest that that there is a high degree of compatibility. This undermines the widespread view that disabilities, by their very nature, substantially limit a person’s ability to access the goods of life, and it provides some guidance on how to dissolve the Disability Paradox. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Extraordinary Rendition:On Politics, Music, and Circular MeaningsRandall Everett AllsupThe purpose of this symposium is to look at music, education, and politics. I will begin with an examination of how musical meanings are politically rendered, and how these understandings are attached to moral consequences. Highly resistant to classification, musical meanings are those things we come to understand about ourselves through music, as opposed to musical knowledge which is demonstrable know-how. (...) While marching bands and flute sonatas can be judged with scores estimated to the 100th decimal point, the meanings that are created between the standards of practice of a given genre and the worldview of the listener or performer are provisional at best. Seen in this light, even seemingly secure or knowable realms like Christian heavy metal or anti-war movies are in fact highly un-objective and unpredictable. (More on Christian rock and movies in a moment). The challenge this paper seeks to uncover is participation on the hither side of fact, where understandings are rendered in a world that is contingent, political, and always in motion. What better example of the unclassifiable than the moving axes of politics and art?So what occurs between art and human or so-called "world" experience? [End Page 144] Let's agree that there is always motion, non-neutral, political movement in this interaction. We need not be students of French post-structuralism to recognize that we are part of many ever-evolving human-made systems, some of control, regulation, reward, punishment, and pleasure, but each with their own gravitation pull.1 I like Susan Sontag's take the best when she wrote that every place, every history has its own "sensibility," its own ineffable way of being in the world.2 Sensibilities—perhaps a clearer way of referring to politics in the context of art and experience—do not exist apart from their environment, yet they are more elusive than an idea or recognizable behavior.3 The sensibility of a time and place makes possible multiple discourses through which we make meaning.4 Some discourses, Foucault would remind us, are intensified by a history's particular sensibility and so appear louder than others. Such a discourse might speak so loudly that it shapes the meanings we make, drowning out options, and thus appearing obvious or commonsensical. The logic of musical assessment and evaluation—scoring marching bands and flute sonatas to the 100th decimal—is one such example.In spite of authoritative voices and reasonable discourses, each history's sensibility has its own escape routes, its own distortions and contradictions. I am fascinated by how we comply with or resist these pulls, as they are matters of agency and identity, matters of equity and social justice. In the present-day context of neo-liberalism and conservative values, especially 21st Century American fundamentalism, we would do well to ask how—not whether—such a fundamentalist sensibility shapes our ways of doing and knowing.5 My attempt is to locate music education in such a project.Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, I wrote a short piece on the fundamentalist imagination and its pull on the arts and education.6 This research took place at the 2003 MENC biennial where Bennett Reimer asks philosophy SRIG participants to consider (among other things) the role of metaphor in music education.7 I viewed the fundamentalist imagination as antithetical to metaphor: to paraphrase, the fundamentalist philosophy of education was "a philosophy for, not with, its initiates. Judgments are passed, not reached; answers are given, not argued... [Most importantly,] it is an educational method that emphasizes and then measures what is literal."8Since then, the voices of American literalism have appeared in increasingly loud volume seeking to discourage interpretation and argument in favor of handed-down teachings and binary logic. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia decries the folly of a "living" constitution, in favor of a strict or literal reading. Retired Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, in response to a common ground initiative by the late Joseph Bernadin, labels an appeal to "dialogue" a "fundamental flaw."9 Law sniffed, "Dissent from revealed truth or the authoritative [End Page 145] teaching of the church cannot... (shrink)

Coregulation refers to the process by which relationship partners form a dyadic emotional system involving an oscillating pattern of affective arousal and dampening that dynamically maintains an optimal emotional state. Coregulation may represent an important form of interpersonal emotion regulation, but confusion exists in the literature due to a lack of precision in the usage of the term. We propose an operational definition for coregulation as a bidirectional linkage of oscillating emotional channels between partners, which contributes to emotional stability for (...) both partners. We propose several distinctions and raise unanswered questions that will need to be addressed in order to understand the relevance of coregulation for well-being in adulthood. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).