We show 13 stages of the development of tool-use and tool making during different eras in the evolution of Homo sapiens. We used the NeoPiagetian Model of Hierarchical Complexity rather than Piaget's. We distinguished the use of existing methods imitated or learned from others, from doing such a task on one's own.

For economists, sustainability and environmental valuation are connected in two ways. At the micro level, proper environmental valuation is required if projects are to be approved and rejected consistently with sustainability requirements. This is cost benefit analysis. At the macro level, many take the view that sustainability requires that national income measurement be modified so as to account for environmental damage. Such natural resource accounting is possible only if environmental damage is valued for incorporation into the economic accounts. The paper (...) reviews the techniques that economists have developed for environmental valuation. In regard to cost benefit analysis and sustainability, it is noted that the technique on which most interest focuses, the Contingent Valuation Method, involves the extension of the domain of consumer demand analysis to include the natural environment. Contributions questioning the appropriateness of this are reviewed, and it is argued that they merit more attention from economists than they have received to date. In regard to natural resource accounting, it is argued that while there is little prospect of it achieving what its proponents claim for it, the modelling that it necessarily implies has the potential to both clarify valuation issues and play an important role in informing the policy process. (shrink)

(2008). Genetic Engineering and the Speciation of Superions from Humans. World Futures: Vol. 64, Postformal Thought and Hierarchical Complexity, pp. 436-443.

A sequential, hierarchical stage model of empathy can account for a comprehensive range of empathic behaviors. We provide an illustrative table, “Stages of Empathy,” to demonstrate how increasingly complex empathic behaviors emerge at each stage, beginning with the infant's “automatic empathy” and ending with the advanced adult's “coconstruction of empathetic reality.”.

Review of: Photography after Capitalism, Ben Burbridge (2020) London: Goldsmiths Press, 240 pp., ISBN 978-1-91268-599-8, h/bk, £34.00.

We distinguish traditional cognition theories from hierarchically complex stacked neural networks that meet many of Newell's criteria. The latter are flexible and can learn anything that a person can learn, by using their mistakes and successes the same way humans do. Shortcomings are due largely to limitations of current technology.

(2008). The Connection Between Postformal Thought and Major Scientific Innovations. World Futures: Vol. 64, Postformal Thought and Hierarchical Complexity, pp. 503-512.

Hierarchical complexity's unidimensional measurement can help rectify policy confusion and debates about democratization and terrorism reduction. Stages of political development examined using the method yield task analyses demonstrating why stages cannot be skipped or rushed. Composites of stages and societies' transitions implicate policy change for anti-corruption and nation-building. New indexes for the political domain should be developed using hierarchical complexity to account for and measure a multitude of political tasks regardless of content or context. Measurement offers a reliable, empirical basis (...) to resist attempts to rush development. Hierarchical complexity accounts for why such efforts are doomed in advance to fail. (shrink)

We create a database of company codes of ethics from firms listed on the Standard & Poor's 500 Index and, separately, a sample of small firms. The SEC believes that "ethics codes do, and should, vary from company to company." Using textual analysis techniques, we measure the extent of commonality across the documents. We find substantial levels of common sentences used by the firms, including a few cases where the codes of ethics are essentially identical. We consider these results (...) in the context of legal statements versus value statements. While legal writing often mandates duplication, we argue that value-based statements should be held to a higher standard of originality. Our evidence is consistent with isomorphic pressures on smaller firms to conform. (shrink)

The paper confronts the disagreement argument for relativism about matters of taste, defending a specific form of contextualism. It is first considered whether the disagreement data might manifest an inviariantist attitude speakers pre-reflectively have. Semantic and ontological enlightenment should then make the impressions of disagreement vanish, or at least leave them as lingering ineffectual Müller-Lyer-like illusions; but it is granted to relativists that this does not fully happen. López de Sa’s appeal to presuppositions of commonality and Sundell’s appeal to (...) metalinguistic disagreement are discussed, and it is argued that, although they help to clarify the issues, they do not fully explain why such impressions remain under enlightenment. To do it, the paper develops a suggestion that other writers have made, that the lingering impression of disagreement is a consequence of a practical conflict, appealing to dispositions to practical coordination that come together with presuppositions of commonality in axiological matters. (shrink)

Reflections on moral discourse and its contexts are provided and the authors discuss the nature and tasks of moral philosophy. The collection creates a dialogue between different philosophical views.

Kohlberg proposed that various cultural, social and educational factors may influence moral reasoning. As far as the authors know, participants in previous studies of moral reasoning have been, largely, educated persons, irrespective of their culture. Two studies on moral reasoning were conducted in a Mexican–United States border city. The first study found that even some unschooled, non‐literate adults reason at a high stage (formal operations, Moral 3/4). Exposure to different cultural and organizational contexts, in addition to assumption of leadership roles, (...) was associated with such reasoning. Likewise, the second study found that high school students who were identified as leaders, especially those with cross‐cultural contact and those who were of high socio‐economic status, reasoned at higher stages than those who were not. Overall, stage of reasoning increased with age. (shrink)

The evolution of humans required performing increasingly hierarchically complex tasks within multiple domains. Hierarchical complexity increases task by task. Tasks occur within, and differ by, determinable domains, their stages of performance measurable using the Model of Hierarchical Complexity. How well one performs within single and multiple domains is considered to indicate intelligence. Original task-initiation is more difficult than imitational learning and can create new domains. Levels of support reduce task difficulty, increasing performance. Task-performance may be generalized to other domains. Stages (...) of developing tools and empathy are presented to demonstrate domains' roles in the evolution of human intelligence. (shrink)

이 논문은 우리의 삶에 요구되는 중심의 일상성과 다원성을 살펴, 그것이 자기중심의 왜곡 형태인 중심주의와는 다른 것임을 밝힌 것으로, 중심의 철학이라 할 수 있는 유가철학적 함의를 통해 접근하였다. 수많은 사물들, 사람이나 대상, 개체 또는 개인은 그 존재에 있어 ‘중심’을 필요로 한다. 적중(的中), 천중(天中), 지중(地中), 시중(時中), 남중(南中), 절중(折中), 집중(執中), 중절(中節)과 같은 자연적이면서 본질적인 중심이 있는가 하면, 미국 중심주의, 유럽 중심주의, 남성중심주의와 같이, 자기 입장을 고수함으로써 개체간, 양단간 소통의 장애 요소가 되는 중심주의도 있다. 이 논문에서 ‘중심’은 사물이나 일의 존재를 위한 근본적인 것으로 간주되고, (...) ‘중심주의’는 자기중심과 같은 것으로 여겨진다. 중심 찾기란, 중, 중용으로 표현할 수 있는 유가철학의 본질적 추구와 닿아 있는데, 양자간, 양단간, 다자간의 절충 과정을 거쳐, 사물간의 화해를 기약하기 위한 조화와 균형 찾기이다. 따라서 인간의 욕망이 빚어낸 근대적 메커니즘, 곧 서구 중심주의, 유럽 중심주의, 남성중심주의 등과 같은 함의와는 궤를 달리한다. 아울러 서구의 충격에 의해 만들어진 근대기에 집권층과 그 주변의 학자들에 의해 주장된, 중체서용, 동도서기, 화혼양재와 같은 이분법도 중심 찾기와는 거리가 멀다. 시대상황의 해결을 위한 진정한 중심 찾기가 아니며, 유가 본연의 절충적 중심 찾기도 아니다. 이들 입장은 양단을 잡는 것과, 그것을 통해 중심을 찾는 절충이 생략되었다는 점에서 하나의 이념의 표방에 그친다. 근원을 알 수 없는 누군가의 야망, 아집, 욕망-아마도 그것은 보수완고주의 집권세력이나 기득권층일 것임-이 만들어낸 비본질적 중심 이행 과정이었다. 궁극적으로 만물 존재에는 다양하고 일상적인 중심성이 있음을 인식하고, 이를 본질적으로 추구할 때, 큰 조화의 기운을 보존하고 합하는, 양자간 혹은 다자간 상호 이해는 실현될 것이라는 점을 이 논문은 지적한다. (shrink)

John. R. Searle (2015) argues that the “Commonality thesis” (CT) is a respectable view in the philosophy of perception. According to CT, indistinguishable experiences (veridical perception and corresponding hallucination) can have the same phenomenology and the same intentional content. Searle thinks that to defend CT, one must accept the Common Kind Assumption (CKA). According to CKA, “whatever kind of mental, or more narrowly experiential, event occurs when one perceives, the very same kind of event could occur where one hallucinating.” (...) Recently, CKA received enormous criticism. Therefore, maintaining CT in support of CKA is questionable. This paper aims at a dual purpose: first, to establish that CT is a respectable thesis and second, to defend CT without endorsing CKA. (shrink)