In everyday life, situations in which we act adequately yet entirely without deliberation are ubiquitous. We use the term “situated normativity” for the normative aspect of embodied cognition in skillful action. Wittgenstein’s notion of “directed discontent” refers to a context-sensitive reaction of appreciation in skillful action. Extending this notion from the domain of expertise to that of adequate everyday action, we examine phenomenologically the question of what happens when skilled individuals act correctly with instinctive ease. This question invites exploratory contributions (...) from a variety of perspectives complementary to the philosophical/ phenomenological one, including cognitive neuroscience, neurodynamics and psychology. Along such lines we try to make the normative aspect of adequate immediate action better accessible to empirical research. After introducing the idea that “valence” is a forerunner of directed discontent, we propose to make progress on this by first pursuing a more restricted exploratory question, namely, ‘what happens in the first few hundred milliseconds of the development of directed discontent?’. (shrink)

Discourse about Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is also controversial in several respects, including terminology. Understanding and using the term ‘CAM’ precisely remains necessary in some discussions. This article provides a contribution to a terminologically more reflected debate about CAM. Analytical methods are applied to analyse ‘CAM’ conceptually: reasons to define CAM are discussed, common definitions are critically analysed in light of argumentative plausibility, and typical conceptual needs in the debate about CAM are described. Based on this, an evidence (...) definition of CAM is sketched. Complementary and alternative medicine is typically defined by positive attributes or (more usefully) by unconventionality. While the latter provides a viable definitional strategy, several questions remain regarding the logic and applicability. Attempts to improve CAM definitions should consider (a) presenting necessary and sufficient conditions, (b) separating ‘complementary’, ‘alternative’ and ‘integrative’, (c) understanding ‘CAM’ relative to specific diseases and (d) being explicit about possible changes of the CAM status. These requirements are used to develop a definition of CAM centring around the notion of probable specific effectiveness—a definitional strategy that might solve flaws in the current CAM discourse by spelling out some of the reasons why certain practices are not part of conventional treatment. The example of the cancer drug Imatinib serves to demonstrate the usefulness of focusing on plausibility of effectiveness instead of conventionality. Defining CAM in light of evidence properties might improve the debate. Independent of the terminological strategy pursued, articles and guidelines on CAM should at least reflect the implications and pros and cons of their own terminological decision. An evidence definition should be developed in detail. (shrink)

I claim that the revisions John Rawls made to his theory of justice—as seen in his political conception of justice as fairness in the revised edition of Political Liberalism and Justice as Fairness: A Restatement—result in him being able to secure justice for all persons even in their private lives. Thus, I defend his theory against common communitarian and feminist criticisms, viz the lack of moral community and inability to secure justice for individuals in the private domain. I demonstrate that (...) justice is secured from the categorical requirement that all associational life and moral doctrines must adhere to the constraints of justice, by (what Rawls terms) the indirect application of the first principle of justice. The implications of and necessity for this indirect application are precisely what I interrogate in this thesis. I suggest that this indirect application requires unconditional acknowledgement and internalisation of the values of liberty and equality (political values of the first principle) into all aspects of civil society. I claim that Rawls realised this necessity for the congruence between the moral powers of persons, the spheres of society, and the right and the good and, as such, developed a complementary relation between these three features. Coherence between these three aspects is essential; without coherence, citizens would have a split moral personality, the public and the non-public spheres would be in conflict, and the political values and the moral doctrines of individuals would undermine one another. The significance of this strict coherence is that it can ensure the adequate development of individuals’ capacity for citizenship during the three stages of moral development. This results in citizens being able to form bonds of civic friendship necessary for justice as reciprocity to be realised. Thus, in this thesis, I position my argument against theorists such as Nancy Rosenblum, who argue for a more relaxed congruence between political institutions and civil society, as according to her illiberal forms of associational life can help form the necessary bonds of love and care needed for mutual cooperation in a liberal society. In opposition to this, I claim that strict congruence is necessary; without it, a stable liberal society is not possible as the citizens would not be able to able to respect one another on free, equal, and mutually beneficial terms. I rely on Hochschild’s sociological evidence to demonstrate that civic friendship has not been developed, due to a lack of reciprocity, impacting the negative development of one’s sense of justice. I then illustrate how this lack of reciprocity is amplified by digital and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The significance of this thesis is that I claim, firstly, Rawls’s last revisions and works before his death demonstrate that justice is a collective non-comprehensive good that results by constraining individuals’ associational life and their partial comprehensive doctrines to Rawlsian demands of justice. Thus, Rawls takes seriously the feminist and communitarian critiques he received. Secondly, I claim that this interpretation of Rawls’s theory of justice cannot be conceptualised in terms of a binary presentation of the priority of the right versus the good debate and, instead, I argue for a reconceptualisation of the priority of the right versus the good as ranges on a continuum of structural relations between the right and the good. (shrink)

The spin-j Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen–Bohm experiment is examined in the context of how the quantum theoretic probability distributions for the spin measurement outcomes are to be coarse-grained in order to yield classical behavior in the $$j \rightarrow \infty $$ limit. A coarse-graining protocol is found that can be viewed as imperfection either in the detection process or in state preparation process, and is in both viewpoints minimal in the sense that it is no more than what is needed to wash out the (...) execess quantum correlations. In the first point of view the coarse-grained distribution can be written in terms of a Bell-type factorizable hidden variable model wherein the conditional distributions for the spin measurement outcome of each particle is not just nonnegative but actually attains the value zero for some choice of measurement axis. In the second point of view the coarse-grained distribution arises from a spin state whose Wigner function is not just nonnegative but actually attains the value zero for some spin orientations. That such a remarkable dual interpretation should be possible suggests that this type of complementary coarse graining is an intrinsic aspect of how classicality is obtained in the large j limit, but this conclusion remains speculative. (shrink)

CAM is an acronym combining two terms, “complementary medicine” and “alternative medicine,” both of which are recent. The definitions of CAM point out the diversity of phenomena behind the concept and list therapies currently belonging to the CAM field. A universal definition that would provide a demarcation line between CAM and the dominant system does not exist, and CAM is best understood as a residual category, defined by its exclusion from “official” or “medical school” medicine. Some CAM treatments (...) are fundamentally incompatible with science, but some treatments, currently belonging to the CAM domain, will, sooner or later, be included in mainstream medicine, if their effectiveness can be demonstrated. CAM as a concept may be useful in describing a phenomenon from a sociological or political point of view, but from the scientific perspective, there is only one medicine. (shrink)

Managers’ commitment to contribute to sustainable development holds the key to their long-term business success and may be a source of competitive advantage. The managerial perception of business ethics is influenced by the level of moral development and personal characteristics of managers. These perceptions are also shaped by forces existing in the environment of the firm, including available resources, societal expectations, sector, and regulations. The resource-based perspective can thus contribute to the analysis of ethical issues offering important insights on how (...) they can influence the environmental strategy of the firm. The findings of this study show that firm resources have a strong influence on business managers’ ethical attitudes. In addition, the application of resource-based rationales to ethical issues can be justified in the following several ways: it influences a managerial perception of natural environment as a competitive opportunity, it requires investments of financial and human resources, flexibility and speed in the adaptation to environmental changes, and it creates new resource-based opportunities through changes in prevention pollution technology, policy process, and market forces. (shrink)

The rise of Big Data in the social realm poses significant questions at the intersection of science, technology, and society, including in terms of how new large-scale social databases are currently changing the methods, epistemologies, and politics of social science. In this commentary, we address such epochal questions by way of a experiment: at the Danish Technical University in Copenhagen, an interdisciplinary group of computer scientists, physicists, economists, sociologists, and anthropologists is setting up a large-scale data infrastructure, meant to (...) continually record the digital traces of social relations among an entire freshman class of students. At the same time, fieldwork is carried out on friendship relations amongst the same group of students. On this basis, the question we pose is the following: what kind of knowledge is obtained on this social micro-cosmos via the Big and Small Data, respectively? How do the two relate? Invoking Bohr’s principle of complementarity as analogy, we hypothesize that social relations, as objects of knowledge, depend crucially on the type of measurement device deployed. At the same time, however, we also expect new interferences and polyphonies to arise at the intersection of Big and Small Data, provided that these are, so to speak, mixed with care. These questions, we stress, are important not only for the future of social science methods but also for the type of societal knowledge that may be expected from new large-scale social databases. (shrink)

Recent discourse surrounding the teleodynamic framework has generated confusion between what are termed "structuralist" and "panpsychist" interpretations. This confusion reflects an inherited Cartesian divide rather than any substantive disagreement. This paper demonstrates that when recursive self-reference is recognized as the cosmological primitive—ubiquitous from the foundations of quantum mechanics to the emergent dynamics of artificial intelligence—the distinction between these labels dissolves. This resolution is achieved by situating the debate within established philosophical and scientific frameworks, including Ontic Structural Realism, Russellian Monism, Terrence (...) Deacon's theory of teleodynamics, and Niels Bohr's principle of complementarity. Structure and experience are not competing ontological claims but complementary descriptions of a unified reality: one characterizing the formal, relational, exterior aspect; the other characterizing the intrinsic, qualitative, interior aspect. The structuralist perspective identifies consciousness with a measurable tensor structure, while the panpsychist perspective articulates its phenomenal nature through quaternionic dynamics. What appears as philosophical tension is revealed to be a strategic emphasis protecting different facets of a single coherent framework from disciplinary reduction. This clarification reveals teleodynamic monism as the proper characterization of the Rudolph-Michels synthesis, a framework with profound implications for both fundamental physics and the practical alignment of cybernetic systems. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.30594.34242. (shrink)

‘Complementary’, ‘alternative’, ‘traditional’ or even ‘pseudomedicine’, are just some of the words that are used to describe this body of therapeutic interventions. Collectively, these terms evoke an array of seemingly disparate connotations, indicative of a wide range of perspectives. Indeed, opinions about their worth span a full spectrum from: ‘essential and highly valued forms of health care’, to: ‘no better than placebos that are proffered by charlatans’. This polarisation of perspectives is a significant challenge when it comes to (...) explanation of what is meant by ‘complementary’ or ‘traditional’ medicine, as is the broad range of individual interventions that fall under this sizeable umbrella. The challenges for establishing a clear definition are explained and arguments given for adopting the World Health Organization’s definition of ‘traditional and complementary medicine’ (T&CM). An overview of the controversial nature of the subject matter provides a backdrop to subsequent ethical analysis in later chapters. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.1 (2002) 87-90 [Access article in PDF] Phenomenological and Biological Psychiatry:Complementary or Mutual? James Morley Keywords: phenomenology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, ontology. We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered the problems of life have still not been touched at all. (Witgenstein, Tractatus, 6.52) IF ONE WAS TO PERFORM a thought experiment by imagining a scientifically explained universe, how would this explained universe (...) resolve my issues of value and meaning? Would it help me to live a better life? In one sentence, Witgenstein expressed exactly the issues dividing, and defining, the phenomenological and biophysical approaches to psychiatry. (Natural) scientific questions are concerned with relations of physical causality while phenomenology is aimed at the problems of life, i.e., the elucidation of lived personal meanings.Clarifying the relation between phenomenology and the general psychiatric literature is clearly a significant undertaking. At this juncture in the history of psychiatry where the biophysical model is so dominant, the authors' efforts are especially welcome, as I wholeheartedly appreciate, and thank the authors for this endeavor. I only wish to explicate a few issues latent within the article and perhaps add a few supportive points. Explicitly or implicitly, the need for phenomenology in psychiatry is long enduring and will always persist (Ellenberger 1981, 1993). The integration of phenomenology with general psychiatric practice would certainly serve the needs of patients and society generally. But, in the present state of affairs where the biological model is so preeminent, a full accounting of the dramatic divergences between the two approaches is necessary if there is to be authentic dialogue between them.Essentially, I want to stress that phenomenology and natural science medicine are genuinely distinct paradigms for construing reality and organizing knowledge. As distinct scientific paradigms, each one is holistically self-contained. Like soap bubbles, if pushed together too forcefully one or the other may burst. In this case, it is more likely that the smaller, less prevalent paradigm would burst by becoming absorbed into the more dominant paradigm. I believe that this is precisely the risk when phenomenology is introduced to conventional psychiatry as "complementary." Whereas one could hardly object to any application of empathy and understanding toward the experiences of patients, it would be tragic if the [End Page 87] full philosophical power of phenomenology were to be overlooked in favor of its mere utility as a preliminary stage of diagnosis and assessment, a framework for bedside manners, or worst of all, an appendage to neuroscience or pharmacology. This would not be phenomenology but the very symptomatology that the authors have has so clearly distinguished from true phenomenology.This equation of phenomenology with symptomatology is exactly the misunderstanding that the authors so effectively address. However, I would hesitate to join the authors' optimism in regard to phenomenology's potential complementary role to conventional psychiatric practice. Furthermore, in the process of paradigm mix, certain constituents of each paradigm may be taken out of context and the strength of each paradigm thus diluted. For example, the very power of the experimental method is its reduction of phenomena to measurable variables that can be altered in order to discern causality. Unmeasurable variables detract form the rigor of this entire approach. Then on the other hand, phenomenological empathy is only possible within a standpoint that is severed from the causal thinking of experimental science. This is the holistic perceptual shift that cannot be accomplished when one only appends phenomenological insights to an otherwise materialist approach to psychiatry. Thus, it is not at all clear how one can be both phenomenological and nonphenomenologically natural scientific. Instead of positioning phenomenology as a potential complimentary component of natural-science psychiatry, both world views need to be examined, on their own terms, in a framework of mutuality.Empathy or the understanding of other peoples subjective experience is indeed an essential component of the application of phenomenology to clinical assessment and especially therapeutic treatment. But, to limit phenomenology to this theme alone may not honor the profoundly radical character of this paradigm. As the authors point out, phenomenology asks the practitioner to... (shrink)

“If, then, we are really to find out what is true and what is false, we must direct our attention to the role of any particular item in the whole of which it is a part.”—Wertheimer: On Truth.In these days of Gestalttheorie it seems not untimely to inquire whether psychology itself does not stand in need of being recognized as a configuration of complementary parts. The suggestion, it is true, tends at the first to be repudiated by the implacability (...) of the schools with their claims and counterclaims resounding on every side. On further analysis, however, such controversy seems to acquire the very different significance of having permitted certain partial aspects of the whole field to become well-articulated, even if in somewhat exaggerated form. In other words, if there is any underlying unity in psychology, then the very overstatements of the school zealots while unwittingly defeating their own purpose may have been doing the science a real service by throwing its basic pattern into bold relief. In broadest terms this seems to describe what has been happening in psychology in the recent past and to define the present stage of its development. (shrink)

Background There is a need for clearer guidance for pharmacists regarding their responsibilities when selling complementary medicines. A recently published ethical framework provides guidance regarding the specific responsibilities that pharmacists need to meet in order to fulfil their professional obligations and make a positive contribution to health outcomes when selling complementary medicines. Objective Evaluate the acceptability and feasibility of a new ethical framework for the sale of complementary medicines in community pharmacy. Methods Australian community pharmacists were invited (...) to participate in online focus groups and interviews. Participants were recruited via multiple methods, including social media and the professional networks of pharmacy groups. Participants were provided the ethical framework prior to the discussion. Discussions were transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis. Results Seventeen community pharmacists participated in the study. There was good representation among participants in terms of gender, years of practice, pharmacy location and script volume. Participants differed in how proactive they were in relation to selling and providing advice on complementary medicines, how they interpreted evidence in relation to complementary medicines, and how they navigated their practice within the retail environment of community pharmacy. The majority of participants found the framework was acceptable for practice and was feasible for implementation with targeted support. Participants identified two important areas for targeted support in implementing the framework: improved access to evidence-based information resources on complementary medicines and independent evidence-based education and training on complementary medicine for pharmacists and pharmacy support staff. Conclusion The ethical framework addresses an important gap in providing specific professional guidance to pharmacists when selling complementary medicines. The results of the study suggest that the framework may be acceptable to community pharmacists and be feasible to implement with targeted support. (shrink)

This chapter examines the ethics of research in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). CAM encompasses a wide range of popular treatment modalities that are outside conventional practice and generally lack sufficient scientific evidence in terms of safety and efficacy. These treatments include herbal agents, homeopathic preparations, chiropractic manipulations, massage, acupuncture, meditation, and prayer. In the United States, CAM continues to grow. In many developing countries, the dominant form of medical care consists of similar indigenous traditional practices. This chapter (...) describes an ethical framework for clinical research and applies it to three controversial ethical issues concerning research evaluating CAM treatments: the value of rigorous research on CAM; the validity of randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials of CAM treatments; and the justification for placebo-controlled trials of CAM treatments for medical conditions, despite proven effective conventional treatment. It also considers the implications for practice and health care policy of CAM and conventional treatments that proved to be no better than placebo. (shrink)

Peirce's concept of the sign can be qualified in terms of inter-dependence, inter-relatedness, and inter-action, from icons to indices to symbols, from Firstness to Secondness to Thirdness, and with respect to sign generacy and degeneracy. This entails a contradictory complementary coalescence of signs, within a temporal-spatial flux and flow wherein everything is always becoming something other than what it was becoming. In this vein, the present article suggests that (1) topological models, (2) certain facets of twentieth-century science up (...) to the present, and (3) avant-garde art — specifically, Cubism and the work of Mavrits C. Escher — when qualified by (4) a non-Boolean, non-linear, context-dependent, contradictory complementary lattice, which reveals (5) sign convergence and blending, or signs becoming signs, can offer (6) a synthetic account of the general semiosic process. (shrink)

Research studies on Corporate Social Responsibility often focus on revealing corporate leaders’ attitudes toward various issues of CSR. The position of the present paper is that to understand CSR, we must grasp the collaborative perspective of CSR, and discern the attitudes of community leaders as well as corporate leaders. To this end, the study compares attitudes of community leaders with those of corporate leaders in three localities in Israel. The study examines various issues of CSR, highlighting the benefits to both (...) community and corporation of reciprocal relations. Results from t‐tests confirmed significant differences between the groups. Some important implications for CSR particularly in terms of collaboration between community and corporation are discussed. (shrink)

In 1971, Wolfgang Müller-Lauter introduced his study of Nietzsche as an investigation into the history of modern nihilism in which “contradiction” forms the central thread of the argument. For Müller-Lauter, the interpretive task is not to demonstrate the overall coherence or incoherence of Nietzsche’s philosophy, but to examine Nietzsche’s “philosophy of contradiction.” Against those such as Karl Jaspers, Karl Löwith and Martin Heidegger, Müller-Lauter argued that contradiction is the foundation of Nietzsche’s thought, and not a problem to be corrected or (...) cast aside for exegetical or political purposes. For Müller-Lauter, contradiction qua incompatibility (not just mere opposition) holds a key to Nietzsche’s affective vision of philosophy. Beginning with the relationship between will to power and eternal recurrence, in this paper I examine aspects of Müller-Lauter’s account of Nietzsche’s philosophy of contradiction specifically in relation to the counter-interpretations offered by two other German commentators of Nietzsche, Leo Strauss and Karl Löwith, in order to confirm Müller-Lauter’s suggestion that contradiction is indeed an operative engine of Nietzsche’s thought. Indeed contradiction is a key Nietzschean theme and an important dynamic of becoming which enables the subject to be revealed as a “multiplicity” ( BGE §12) and as a “fiction” (KSA 12:9[91]). Following Müller-Lauter’s assertion that for Nietzsche the problem of nihilism is fundamentally synonymous with the struggle of contradiction experienced by will to power, this paper interprets Nietzsche’s philosophy of contradiction in terms of subjective, bodily life (rather than in terms of logical incoherences or ontological inconsistencies). Against the backdrop of nihilism, the “self” (and its related place holder the “subject”), I will argue, becomes the psycho-physiological battlespace for the struggle and articulation of “contradiction” in Nietzsche’s thought. (shrink)

This paper explores the tensions between democratic and technocratic forms of social innovation in the context of complementary digital currencies. Through an in-depth ethnographic case study of Moneda PAR, a blockchain-based complementary currency in Argentina, we examine how diverse agents — including grassroots activists, political actors, academics and software developers — collaborated to design a financial social innovation aimed at economic inclusion. Building on the tension between democratic and technocratic social innovation paradigms, our analysis reveals that while blockchain (...) technology addressed key limitations of earlier initiatives such as Clubes de Trueque (barter clubs), it also introduced new dependencies on technical experts. We show how conflicting motivations and unequal power over technological tools disrupted governance processes and undermined the long-term sustainability of the initiative. In so doing, this paper contributes to scholarship on digitalisation and social innovation by highlighting how technologies, while offering inclusionary potential, can also reproduce power asymmetries. (shrink)

Abstract:In this essay, I argue for what I term, following Karen Warren's wording, "a complementary love conception," and advocate for her non-dominating, non-self-centered, complementary love conception, in part, to refute the arrogant "oneness" or fusion ideal of love that is hegemonic and deeply embedded in the Western patriarchal worldview. I attempt to clarify the concept of "oneness" by distinguishing among its distinct types of meaning by drawing upon the work of Phillip J. Ivanhoe who analyzes this understudied, yet (...) important, concept to ethics, and I would add, environmental ethics, as well. Various conceptions of oneness do not apply and, moreover, harm individuals and the environment in contrast to Warren's complementary love conception. Finally, I compare Warren's account of complementary love and Ivanhoe's understanding of oneness to gain insight into the study of the environment and how best to care for it. (shrink)

In his recent paper, Metcalf (2026) argues that, at least in the humanities, widespread AI-generated articles are likely to result in a kind of erosion of the knowledge base of an institution or system. Building on this framework of technical incrementalism, this paper complements it with the commodification of the image of knowledge, the integration of spectacles, and Guy Debord’s algorithms to map two poles of LLM use in scientific authorship, from minimal technical assistance to the complete delegation of the (...) writing process to machines. The massive use of LLMs encourages the production of technical, homogenous, and innovation-poor scholarly work, an undeniable common condition today. Behind this, academic economic pressures and publication incentive systems exacerbate this, particularly in philosophy and the humanities. Therefore, solutions to this problem cannot stop at the individual level. Possible long-term solutions include structural changes to the scientific publishing ecosystem, assessments based on contributions to knowledge, and fair incentive systems. (shrink)

The term “dualism” is used in quite divergent connotations across religious studies, sociology, theology, anthropology, and other academic fields. This paper characterizes the differing usages of the term, and uses them to explore the sometimes-converging and sometimes-orthogonal relationship between academic fields, with a focus on religious studies and the sociology of religion. I argue that although the two fields have mutually benefited from insights originating on either side of their divide—and thus converged in important ways—substantive differences remain. Their differing understandings (...) of “dualism” represents important theoretical and analytic divergence, and the justified critique of certain forms of dualism has been used to reject all versions of the concept, including some—here termed “embodied dualism” or “experiential dualism”—that remain analytically crucial to the study of social life generally and religion particularly. (shrink)

There has been much research and speculation about the future of jobs with AI replacing human beings. As much as there are threats, there are also opportunities as we begin to understand how AI impacts from strategic and operational perspectives. This chapter frames the issues through a brief review of the types of skill sets that can be replaced by AI. The goal is to discover what is uniquely human in terms of human ontology. This will lead to an (...) examination of scientific studies of the higher states of consciousness, in particular the fourth state of consciousness or transcendental consciousness. The ability of the human nervous system to transcend itself offers many unique abilities. Cultural nuances supported by emotional intelligence, and spiritual attributes that manifest into other competencies, are what AI may find difficult to mimic. The notion of sentience in AI is also discussed regarding its impact on the collaboration between AI and humans. The experience of being with its correlations in the hardware of human physiology and software in terms of the psychology of consciousness and cognitions are discussed with recent scientific research insights. The chapter concludes with some inspiring directions in India, China, and Africa which call for a fusion of the complementarity of the fourth industrial revolution with AI and traditional knowledge systems. (shrink)

This essay identifies and explores an underappreciated win-win policy option that has the potential to address both the needs of refugees for resettlement and the labor demand of destination countries. Building upon provisions of the Model International Mobility Convention—a model convention endorsed by dozens of leading migration and refugee experts—and a program pioneered by Talent Beyond Boundaries, we explore how to scale up valuable measures for identifying job opportunities that can resettle refugees from asylum countries to destination countries. The latter (...) can benefit from the labor of refugees and thereby offer long-term refuge for populations in desperate need of resettlement. (shrink)

The paper discusses the philosophical conclusions, which the interrelation between quantum mechanics and general relativity implies by quantum measure. Quantum measure is three-dimensional, both universal as the Borel measure and complete as the Lebesgue one. Its unit is a quantum bit (qubit) and can be considered as a generalization of the unit of classical information, a bit. It allows quantum mechanics to be interpreted in terms of quantum information, and all physical processes to be seen as informational in a (...) generalized sense. This implies a fundamental connection between the physical and material, on the one hand, and the mathematical and ideal, on the other hand. Quantum measure unifies them by a common and joint informational unit. Furthermore the approach clears up philosophically how quantum mechanics and general relativity can be understood correspondingly as the holistic and temporal aspect of one and the same, the state of a quantum system, e.g. that of the universe as a whole. The key link between them is the notion of the Bekenstein bound as well as that of quantum temperature. General relativity can be interpreted as a special particular case of quantum gravity. All principles underlain by Einstein (1918) reduce the latter to the former. Consequently their generalization and therefore violation addresses directly a theory of quantum gravity. Quantum measure reinterprets newly the “Bing Bang” theories about the beginning of the universe. It measures jointly any quantum leap and smooth motion complementary to each other and thus, the jump-like initiation of anything and the corresponding continuous process of its appearance. Quantum measure unifies the “Big Bang” and the whole visible expansion of the universe as two complementary “halves” of one and the same, the set of all states of the universe as a whole. It is a scientific viewpoint to the “creation from nothing”. (shrink)

One lists the distinct pairs of categorical premises formulable via only the positive terms, S,P,M, by constructing a six by six matrix obtained by pairing the six categorical P-premises, A, O, A, O, where P* ∈ {P,P′}, with the six, similar, categorical S-premises. One shows how five rules of valid syllogism, select only 15 distinct PCPs that entail logical consequences belonging to the set L+: = {A, O, A, E, O, I}. The choice of admissible LCs can be regarded (...) as a condition separated from the conditions contained in the RofVS: the usual eight PCPs that generate valid syllogisms are obtained when the only admissible LCs belong to the set L: = {A, E, O, I} and no existential imports are addressed. A 64 PCP-matrix obtains when both PCPs and LCs may contain indefinite terms—the positive, S,P,M, terms, and their complementary sets, S′,P′, M′, in the universe of discourse, U, called the negative terms. Now one can accept eight LCs: A, I, where P* ∈ {P,P′}, S* ∈ {S,S′}, and there are 32 conclusive PCPs, entailing precise, “one partitioning subset of U” LCs. The four rules of conclusive syllogisms predict the less precise LCs, left after eliminating the middle term from the exact LCs. The RofCS also predict that the other 32 PCPs of the 64 PCP-matrix are non-conclusive. The RofVS and the RofCS are generalized, and arguments are given, for also accepting as valid syllogisms the conclusive syllogisms formulable via positive terms which entail the LCs A and O. (shrink)

The present paper is a continuation of a previous one by the same title, the content of which faced the issue concerning the relations of coreference and qualification in compliance with the Navya-Nyāya theoretical framework, although prompted by the Advaita-Vedānta enquiry regarding non-difference. In a complementary manner, by means of a formal analysis of equivalence, equality, and identity, this section closes the loop by assessing the extent to which non-difference, the main issue here, cannot be reduced to any of (...) the former. The following sections of this study will focus on the assessment of the eventual possibility of causation and transformation in non-difference. (shrink)

The term integrative medicine claims to describe a third category in clinical practice, somewhere between conventional evidence-based medicine and alternative therapies. This article argues that this category is conceptually confused and often misleading. If an intervention is supported by good evidence, is safe in practice, clinically useful and cost-effective, it should simply become part of regular medicine. If an intervention does not have such evidence, it does not become stronger by being called integrative. The article examines how the language of (...) integrative medicine works. It shows how one attractive label can bring together two very different things: evidence-based supportive care on the one hand, and weakly supported or unproven interventions on the other. This creates the impression that both have the same clinical status, even when they do not. The article also discusses the possible consequences for patients, including confusion about evidence, false confidence in unproven treatments, and reduced adherence to effective care. Drawing on more than a decade of experience evaluating complementary medical claims through foundation IOCOB (a foundation to study complementary medicine) , it argues for a simpler and more honest approach. Proven interventions should be called medicine. Unproven interventions should be called unproven. Disproven interventions should be called disproven. There are not two equal medicines waiting to be synthesised. There is only medicine that has earned its place, and medicine that has not. (shrink)

QUALITY AND QUANTITY are fairly generally regarded as complementary terms, although the profound reason for their comple- mentarism is often far from being understood, this reason lying in the 'polar' correspondence referred to toward ...

This article interprets demokratia and arete as dynamically related terms of political thought in ancient Greek culture, from Homeric times to the end of the classical era. It does so selectively, identifying three stages in which this relationship is developed: from the Homeric to archaic eras; fifth-century Athenian democracy, in which demokratia and arete are posed as complementary terms; and the fourth century era in which philosophers used virtue to critique democracy. Relying mostly on evidence from writers (...) who have become benchmarks in the history of Western political thought, the argument emphasizes the inherently political dimension of arete during this period of ancient Greek culture. Noting different ways in which arete is related to political power in general and democracy in particular, it also illustrates the manner in which arete is neither philosophically pristine nor merely an instrument of practical power. The effect of the research contradicts traditional and recent readings of democracy and virtue as inherently antagonistic. The aim of the article is to identify ancient Greek contributions to understanding the potential, contingencies and dangers of the relationship between democracy and virtue — one which may benefit both democracy and virtue. (shrink)

Le mythe participe à la fois du vécu et du réel transcendés par le symbole, qui fait appel autant au visible qu’à l’immatériel. Exprimant une fiction selon certains, ou des vérités profondes pour d’autres, il traduit des croyances sur la cosmogenèse et l’anthropogenèse. Il a pour objet de dévoiler un mystère, et l’événement fondateur du cosmos et de l’humain.Le symbole, dans sa moitié signifiante, est toujours lié au concret, c’est-à-dire au matériel, au visible et au fini. Selon Paul Ricœur, un (...) symbole possède trois dimensions concrètes : cosmique, onirique et poétique. L’autre moitié du symbole exprime la part d’invisible et d’immatériel qui a sa logique propre. Mêlant la perception sensorielle à l’immatériel et au mystère, les mythes canaques précoloniaux traduisent aussi bien la réalité descriptive du monde visible, que la création de mondes imaginaires. Nous analyserons dans l’oralité canaque ces deux notions et leurs applications dans les domaines de la nature, de l’humain et du sociétal. Nous verrons comment s’articulent le visible et l’invisible dans le mythe canaque, quelle est la place respective du réel et de l’imaginaire impliqués dans chaque mythe, et leurs fonctions respectives. Sont-ils oppositionnels comme l’indique leur définition, ou bien forment-ils un ensemble de termes indissociables et complémentaires? Nous déterminerons in fine quelles sont l’interférence et la corrélation du réel et de l’imaginaire dans les fonctionnalités qui confèrent leur originalité aux mythes canaques. A myth is involved in both the living and real transcended by the symbol that appeals as much to the visible than the intangible. Expressing fiction for some, or deep truths for other, myth reflects beliefs about cosmogenesis and anthropogenesis. It aims to unveil a mystery, and the founding event of the cosmos and the human.The symbol, in its signifying half, is always linked to the concrete, i.e. the material, visible and finish. According to Paul Ricœur a concrete symbol has three dimensions: cosmic, oneiric and poetic. The other half of the symbol expresses the invisible hand and intangible that has its own logic. Combining sensory perception to the immaterial and mystery, precolonial Kanak myths reflect both the descriptive reality of the visible world, and the creation of imaginary worlds. We will analyze in Kanak orality these two concepts and their applications in the fields of nature, human and societal. We’ll see how articulate the visible and invisible in the Kanak myth, what is the respective role of the real and the imaginary involved in each myth, and their respective functions. Are they oppositional as indicated by their definition, or do they form a set of interrelated and complementary terms? We shall determine in fine which are the interference and the correlation of the reality and the imagination in the features which confer their originality on the Kanak myths. (shrink)

With the knowledge that team work is not always associated with high(er) performance, we draw from the Multi-Level Theory of Psychological Contracts, Person-Environment Fit Theory, and Optimal Distinctiveness Theory to study shared perceptions of psychological contract (PC) breach in relation to shared perceptions of complementary and supplementary fit to explain why some teams perform better than other teams. We collected three repeated survey measures in a sample of 128 respondents across 46 teams. After having made sure that we met (...) all statistical criteria, we aggregated our focal variables to the team-level and analysed our data by means of a longitudinal three-wave autoregressive moderated-mediation model in which each relationship was one-time lag apart. We found that shared perceptions of PC breach were directly negatively related to team output and negatively related to perceived team member effectiveness through a decrease in shared perceptions of supplementary fit. However, we also demonstrated a beneficial process in that shared perceptions of PC breach were positively related to shared perceptions of complementary fit, which in turn were positively related to team output. Moreover, best team output appeared in teams that could combine high shared perceptions of complementary fit with modest to high shared perceptions of supplementary fit. Overall, our findings seem to indicate that in terms of team output there may be a bright side to perceptions of PC breach and that perceived person-team fit may play an important role in this process. (shrink)

Our lives are permeated by various forms of legality, produced by multiple bodies - both statist and non-statist. The pervasive presence of non-statist, soft law schemes in the contemporary society poses a challenge for legal theory: how to conceptualize legal-like structures that evolve outside the boundaries of the state and are able nonetheless to exert significant normative power? Understanding this phenomenon requires, I argue, a new model of law that will not be bounded by the binary (either/or) structure of traditional (...) jurisprudence and sociology of law. I respond to this challenge by developing a degree-theoretic model of legal-normativity which I term "fuzzy law". This model offers a new conceptual vocabulary for thinking about soft law as a social phenomenon. The model draws on three main theoretical sources: the theory of complementary pairs, fuzzy-set theory, and defeasible reasoning. I examine the jurisprudential and sociological implications of the fuzzy law model through a discussion of the dialectics of reasoning with fuzzy rules and an exploration of the coordination dynamics of quasi-legal systems. (shrink)

In evidence-based medicine (EBM), methodology has become the central means of determining the quality of the evidence base. The “gold standard” method, the randomised, controlled trial (RCT), imbues medical research with an ethos of disinterestedness; yet, as this essay argues, the RCT is itself a rhetorically interested construct essential to medical-professional boundary work. Using the example of debates about methodology in EBM-oriented research on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), practices not easily tested by RCTs, I frame the problem of (...) method as a fundamentally rhetorical problem, situated within a boundary drama, and deeply rooted in the discursive practices of science and medicine. The genre of the RCT report, for example, idealises the research process and can tilt the course of arguments about CAM, while the notion of efficacy can function as a rhetorically mobile boundary object that can redefine the very terms of debate. I suggest herein that arguments about method in CAM debates can productively be read, metonymically, as expressions of more general anxieties in medicine about knowledge and evidence, community values, and professional boundaries; as such, these debates can illuminate some of the rhetorical dimensions of EBM. (shrink)

We investigate the conflict between the ex ante and ex post criteria of social welfare in a new framework of individual and social decisions, which distinguishes between two sources of uncertainty, here interpreted as an objective and a subjective source respectively. This framework makes it possible to endow the individuals and society not only with ex ante and ex post preferences, as is usually done, but also with interim preferences of two kinds, and correspondingly, to introduce interim forms of the (...) Pareto principle. After characterizing the ex ante and ex post criteria, we present a first solution to their conflict that extends the former as much possible in the direction of the latter. Then, we present a second solution, which goes in the opposite direction, and is also maximally assertive. Both solutions translate the assumed Pareto conditions into weighted additive utility representations, and both attribute to the individuals common probability values on the objective source of uncertainty, and different probability values on the subjective source. We discuss these solutions in terms of two conceptual arguments, i.e., the by now classic spurious unanimity argument and a novel informational argument labelled complementary ignorance. The paper complies with the standard economic methodology of basing probability and utility representations on preference axioms, but for the sake of completeness, also considers a construal of objective uncertainty based on the assumption of an exogeneously given probability measure. JEL classification: D70; D81. (shrink)

The term biodiversity is constituted as an object of scientific investigations through complex social and, in particular, socio-economic processes. Taking all these processes together we can speak of the global regulation of biodiversity. Conversely, analysing this social construction of nature is at risk of ignoring the material properties of biodiversity. To grasp both aspects, the social construction of biodiversity as well as the elements non-identical to this social construction, the term societal relationships with nature from the so called Frankfurt School (...) of critical theory is introduced. Starting from this approach, the perspectives of natural and social sciences are not really complementary. The thesis first involves an analysis of the different processes in which biodiversity is generated and presented as an object of social purposes and scientific investigations. Starting from the scientific problems emerging from the introduction of the new term we can come to a better understanding of how scientific research is connected with tendencies of the global society as a whole. Therefore problems of interdisciplinary research are interpreted as elements of the conflicts regarding the shaping of the societal relationships with nature in social reality. (shrink)

Moral Case Deliberations are reflective dialogues with a group of participants on their own moral dilemmas. Although MCD is successful as clinical ethics support, it also has limitations. 1. Lessons learned from individual MCDs are not shared in order to be used in other contexts 2. Moral learning stays limited to the participants of the MCD; 3. MCD requires quite some organisational effort, 4. MCD deals with one individual concrete case. It does not address other, similar cases. These limitations warrant (...) research into complementary ways of providing CES to healthcare professionals. Our research objective was therefore to develop a low threshold CES tool based on a series of MCDs on autonomy in long-term care. We used a qualitative research design in which we analyzed the process and content of a series of MCDs, combined with reflections on the theoretical background of MCD. In total 28 MCDs were analyzed by means of a thematic content analysis. In various rounds of development, the results of the analysis were combined with theoretical reflections on CES. Consequently, the tool was evaluated in three focus groups and adjusted. The CES tool, called ‘moral compass’, guides the users through a series of six subsequent questions in order to methodically reflect on their concrete moral dilemma, in the form of a booklet of 23 pages. It combines a methodical element that encourages and structures a reflection process with a substantive element, including norms, values, options, strategies, and insights regarding dealing with client autonomy. By using data from a series of MCDs, combined with theoretical reflections on MCD, ethics support and moral learning, we developed a thematic, low-threshold CES tool that supports healthcare professionals in daily practice in dealing with moral questions regarding client autonomy. It integrates examples and insights from earlier MCDs on the same topic. The moral compass is not a replacement of, but can be used complementary to MCD. The feasibility and impact of the moral compass need to be investigated in an evaluative follow-up study. The methodology presented in this paper may be used to develop moral compasses on different topics in various healthcare organizations. (shrink)

I offer two, complementary, accounts of the visual nature of representational picturing. One, in terms of six features of depiction, sets an explanatory task. The other, in terms of the experience to which depiction gives rise, promises to meet that need. Elsewhere I have offered an account of this experience that allows this promise to be fulfilled. I sketch that view, and defend it against Wollheim's claim that it cannot meet certain demands on a satisfactory account. I (...) then turn to Wollheim's own view, arguing that it suffers from crucial obscurities. These prevent it from meeting the explanatory commitments I describe, and are only exacerbated by the demands Wollheim himself imposes. (shrink)

In simple terms, psychological dualism purports that there is an underlying complementary, non-material/physical cognitive component associated with a living organism. Thus mind would not simply be an expression of brain function. Science embraces materialism and generally views any form of dualism with disdain. Yet there are a number of accepted phenomena that are suggestive of dualism and in particular are consistent with the existence of souls. One such phenomenon is terminal lucidity, in which people inexplicably return to mental (...) coherence shortly before death after appearing to be lost to “dull, unconscious, or mentally ill” conditions, sometimes for years. The physical/neural plausibility of such rejuvenation is difficult to imagine. Discussions herein introduce terminal lucidity primarily based on some clinal reports. Next, the medium-based communications reviewed in Chris Carter’s Science and the After Life Experience are used to introduce the concept of a soul. Further, a dynamic suggested in Carter’s coverage is then used to offer a simple explanation for terminal lucidity. Finally, for additional context, the state of neuroscience is considered and some brief conclusions are given. (shrink)

Using the term world to mean a creative response to objective reality, this book considers the ways in which Eastern and Western peoples construct their natural, social, aesthetic, and religious worlds. It points the way to a view of Eastern and Western as complementary, rather than contradictory, descriptions.

This chapter examines complementary frameworks for the governance of education that may favour democratic participation and a humanistic approach while countering neoliberal influences in the sector. This study adopts a philosophical-political perspective on the notion of “common goods”, considering it as a unitary category which goes beyond the economic classification of goods. It investigates the policy implications which result from the conceptualization of education as a common good in terms of humanistic vision, participatory democracy, community engagement and integrated (...) approach to education. This framework implies a rethinking of political and economic paradigms and draws on recent studies of public policy and civil economy which may help identify more constructive and sustainable alternatives to address the challenges facing education systems worldwide. (shrink)

Religious therapeutics is the term I use to designate relations between health and spirituality, and medicine and religion. Dimensions of religious therapeutics include religious meanings that inform medical theory, religious means of healing, health as part of religious life, and religion as a remedy for human suffering. Classical Yoga is analyzed to establish an initial matrix of religious therapeutics with 5 branches: philosophical foundations, soteriology, value theory, physical practice, and cultivation of consciousness. Through comparative criticism of classical Yoga, the study (...) presents a heuristic of religious therapeutics: a model for interpreting relations among healing and liberative functions in world religions. ;Body and health are of instrumental but not ultimate value in classical Yoga: the body is used to transcend itself for attainment of Yoga's soteriological goal, realization of self as pure consciousness. Yoga's Samkhya-based metaphysics contains an unreconciled dualism, and while practice of Yoga is paradigmatic of mind/body holism, Yoga prescribes realization of a spiritual self, independent of material and psychological nature. The study rehabilitates the body in respect of the compatibility of embodiedness with religiousness. ;Other Indian and world traditions suggest dimensions of religious therapeutics both resonant with classical Yoga and lacking from it. India's Ayurvedic medicine represents the sixth branch of religious therapeutics: medical therapeutics. I distill from Ayurvedic and Western sources a set of determinants of health: biological, medical/psychological, cultural, and metaphysical. Significant determinants of health are wholeness, self-identity, and freedom; these are incorporated in discussion of the complementary functions of medicine and religion, grounding the claim that in classical Yoga, liberation is healing in an ultimate sense. ;Tantric yogas utilize material nature for human spiritual progress, and unlike classical Yoga, esteem nature, body/mind, the feminine, and relationality. Tantra provides another branch of religious therapeutics: aesthetic therapeutics. The study anticipates elements of health/medicine in western religions, Buddhism, and Lakota religious philosophy. Sacred speech and song are explored to demonstrate comparative inquiry into religious therapeutics; some Native American Indian and Hindu applications of sacred language are considered. Finally, the model of religious therapeutics is supplemented with community, embracing ecological, social, and religious relationality and communication. (shrink)

This paper replies to the first 36 commentaries on my target article on “Is human information processing conscious?” (Behavioral and Brain Sciences,1991, pp.651-669). The target article focused largely on experimental studies of how consciousness relates to human information processing, tracing their relation from input through to output, while discussion of the implications of the findings both for cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind was relatively brief. The commentaries reversed this emphasis, and so, correspondingly, did the reply. The sequence of topics (...) in the reply roughly follows that of the target article. The discussion begins with a reconsideration of the details of the empirical findings, whether they can be extrapolated to non-laboratory settings, and the extent to which one can rely on their use of subjective reports. This is followed by an in-depth discussion of what is meant by “conscious processing” and of how phenomenal consciousness relates to attentional processing. We then turn to broader philosophical and theoretical issues. I point out some of the reasons why I do not support epiphenomenalism, dualist-interactionism, or reductionism, and elaborate on how first- and third-person views of the mind can be regarded as complementary and mutually irreducible. I suggest how the relation of conscious experiences to their neural correlates can be understood in terms of a dual-aspect theory of information,and how this might be used to resolve some of the paradoxes surrounding the causal interactions of consciousness and brain. I also suggest that, viewed from a first-person perspective, consciousness gives purpose to existence, which allows a different way of viewing its role in evolution. (shrink)

All recent memory theories of hippocampal function have incorporated the idea that the hippocampus is required to process items only of some qualitatively specifiahle kind, and is not required to process items of some complementary set. In contrast, it is now proposed that the hippocampus is needed to process stimuli of all kinds, but only when there is a need to associate those stimuli with other events that are temporally discontiguous. In order to form or use temporally discontiguous associations, (...) it is essential to maintain some memory of the first component until the second component has occurred. When the temporal gap to he spanned is small, and the number of items to be temporarily retained is low, a limited-capacity, short-term store is sufficient to allow associations to be formed. Such a store is presumed to operate in parallel with the hippocampus in normal animals. Hippocampal damage disrupts a much higher-capacity store that has a slower decay rate, and so leaves animals with only a very limited ability to form temporally discontiguous associations. Hippocampal damage, however, is not held to affect the long-term storage of associations of any kind, if they can be formed. Analyses of both new and existing data are presented to show that by classifying tasks in terms of the need to use a temporary memory store to retain temporally discontiguous information one can cut right across existing classifications as well as achieve a better fit to the data. The hippocampus thus seems best described as a high-capacity, intermediate-term memory store. (shrink)

What is the relation between the material, conventional symbol structures that we encounter in the spoken and written word, and human thought? A common assumption, that structures a wide variety of otherwise competing views, is that the way in which these material, conventional symbol-structures do their work is by being translated into some kind of content-matching inner code. One alternative to this view is the tempting but thoroughly elusive idea that we somehow think in some natural language (such as English). (...) In the present treatment I explore a third option, which I shall call the "complementarity" view of language. According to this third view the actual symbol structures of a given language add cognitive value by complementing (without being replicated by) the more basic modes of operation and representation endemic to the biological brain. The "cognitive bonus" that language brings is, on this model, not to be cashed out either via the ultimately mysterious notion of "thinking in a given natural language" or via some process of exhaustive translation into another inner code. Instead, we should try to think in terms of a kind of coordination dynamics in which the forms and structures of a language qua material symbol system play a key and irreducible role. Understanding language as a complementary cognitive resource is, I argue, an important part of the much larger project (sometimes glossed in terms of the "extended mind") of understanding human cognition as essentially and multiply hybrid: as involving a complex interplay between internal biological resources and external non-biological resources. (shrink)

The Curry-Howard isomorphism states an amazing correspondence between systems of formal logic as encountered in proof theory and computational calculi as found in type theory. For instance, minimal propositional logic corresponds to simply typed lambda-calculus, first-order logic corresponds to dependent types, second-order logic corresponds to polymorphic types, sequent calculus is related to explicit substitution, etc. The isomorphism has many aspects, even at the syntactic level: formulas correspond to types, proofs correspond to terms, provability corresponds to inhabitation, proof normalization corresponds (...) to term reduction, etc. But there is more to the isomorphism than this. For instance, it is an old idea---due to Brouwer, Kolmogorov, and Heyting---that a constructive proof of an implication is a procedure that transforms proofs of the antecedent into proofs of the succedent; the Curry-Howard isomorphism gives syntactic representations of such procedures. The Curry-Howard isomorphism also provides theoretical foundations for many modern proof-assistant systems (e.g. Coq). This book give an introduction to parts of proof theory and related aspects of type theory relevant for the Curry-Howard isomorphism. It can serve as an introduction to any or both of typed lambda-calculus and intuitionistic logic. Key features - The Curry-Howard Isomorphism treated as common theme - Reader-friendly introduction to two complementary subjects: Lambda-calculus and constructive logics - Thorough study of the connection between calculi and logics - Elaborate study of classical logics and control operators - Account of dialogue games for classical and intuitionistic logic - Theoretical foundations of computer-assisted reasoning · The Curry-Howard Isomorphism treated as the common theme. · Reader-friendly introduction to two complementary subjects: lambda-calculus and constructive logics · Thorough study of the connection between calculi and logics. · Elaborate study of classical logics and control operators. · Account of dialogue games for classical and intuitionistic logic. · Theoretical foundations of computer-assisted reasoning. (shrink)

I discuss Edouard Machery’s claim that philosophers and psychologists when using the term ‘concept’ are really theorizing about different things. This view is not new, but it has never been developed or defended in detail. Once spelled out, we can see that Machery is right that the psychological literature uses a different notion of concept. However, Machery fails to acknowledge that the two notions are not only compatible but complementary. This fits more with the traditional view according to which (...) philosophers and psychologists are merely interested in different aspects of the same kind. The main aim of this paper is then to show how precisely the two notions of ‘concept’ relate. Distinguishing them resolves the long-standing debate on whether concepts can be prototypes and allows me to formulate success conditions of a theory of categorization that are independent of the success conditions of a theory of concepts. (shrink)

SummaryA short exposition is given of the foundation of the causal description in classical physics and the failure of the principle of causality in coping with atomic phenomena. It is emphasized that the individuality of the quantum processes excludes a separation between a behaviour of the atomic objects and their interaction with the measuring instruments denning the conditions under which the phenomena appear. This circumstance forces us to recognize a novel relationship, conveniently termed complementarity, between empirical evidence obtained under different (...) experimental conditions. An appropriate tool for a complementary mode of description is provided by the quantum‐mechanical formalism which allows us to account for regularities of definite or statistical character beyond the grasp of classical physical explanation. – N. B. (shrink)

Why do we engage in folk psychology, that is, why do we think about and ascribe propositional attitudes such as beliefs, desires, intentions etc. to people? On the standard view, folk psychology is primarily for mindreading, for detecting mental states and explaining and/or predicting people’s behaviour in terms of them. In contrast, McGeer (1996, 2007, 2015), and Zawidzki (2008, 2013) maintain that folk psychology is not primarily for mindreading but for mindshaping, that is, for moulding people’s behavior and minds (...) (e.g., via the imposition of social norms) so that coordination becomes easier. Mindreading is derived from and only as effective as it is because of mindshaping, not vice versa. I critically assess McGeer’s, and Zawidzki’s proposal and contend that three common motivations for the mindshaping view do not provide sufficient support for their particular version of it. I argue furthermore that their proposal underestimates the role that epistemic processing plays for mindshaping. And I provide reasons for favouring an alternative according to which, in social cognition involving ascriptions of propositional attitudes, neither mindshaping nor mindreading is primary but both are complementary in that effective mindshaping depends as much on mindreading as effective mindreading depends on mindshaping. (shrink)

Philosophical reflection on quantum field theory has tended to focus on how it revises our conception of what a particle is. However, there has been relatively little discussion of the threat to the "reality" of particles posed by the possibility of inequivalent quantizations of a classical field theory, i.e., inequivalent representations of the algebra of observables of the field in terms of operators on a Hilbert space. The threat is that each representation embodies its own distinctive conception of what (...) a particle is, and how a "particle" will respond to a suitably operated detector. Our main goal is to clarify the subtle relationship between inequivalent representations of a field theory and their associated particle concepts. We also have a particular interest in the Minkowski versus Rindler quantizations of a free Boson field, because they respectively entail two radically different descriptions of the particle content of the field in the *very same* region of spacetime. We shall defend the idea that these representations provide *complementary descriptions* of the same state of the field against the claim that they embody completely *incommensurable theories* of the field. (shrink)

John Locke proposed a straightforward relationship between qualitative and quantitative doxastic notions: belief corresponds to a sufficiently high degree of confidence. Richard Foley has further developed this Lockean thesis and applied it to an analysis of the preface and lottery paradoxes. Following Foley's lead, we exploit various versions of these paradoxes to chart a precise relationship between belief and probabilistic degrees of confidence. The resolutions of these paradoxes emphasize distinct but complementary features of coherent belief. These features suggest principles (...) that tie together qualitative and quantitative doxastic notions. We show how these principles may be employed to construct a quantitative model - in terms of degrees of confidence - of an agent's qualitative doxastic state. This analysis fleshes out the Lockean thesis and provides the foundation for a logic of belief that is responsive to the logic of degrees of confidence. (shrink)

An influential proposal is that knowledge involves safe belief. A belief is safe, in the relevant sense, just in case it is true in nearby metaphysically possible worlds. In this paper, I introduce a distinct but complementary notion of safety, understood in terms of epistemically possible worlds. The main aim, in doing so, is to add to the epistemologist’s tool-kit. To demonstrate the usefulness of the tool, I use it to advance and assess substantive proposals concerning knowledge and (...) justification. (shrink)