Search results

Criticisms of naturalistic coherentism are suggested that are not raised by its critics in the literature. The rejection of traditional foundationalism does not necessarily entail the acceptance of coherentism. Coherentism can be seen as another version of foundationalism. Most interestingly, Evers and Lakomski’s stance on “strong vs weak” naturalism seems to be vague. Then, in closing, it is suggested that a recent theory in epistemology termed “foundherentism” might provide some avenues for the further development of naturalistic coherentism, such as by emphasising empirical input in coherentism and adopting a weak version of naturalism.

The most common reaction to an acute physical illness is anxiety, which may be followed by depression. In patients with chronic diseases, the prevalence of anxiety disorders and depression is almost twice as high as in other diseases. This study aims to extract prominent components in the design of treatment spaces on reducing hospitalized patients’ depression from both experts and patients/users’ point of views. A final model is also presented based on the findings.

This research used an exploratory mixed method. The effective components were extracted through the administration of two Likert-scale researcher-made questionnaires in two phases. Q factor analysis was conducted to reach the components. A total of 205 patients were admitted to Namazi Hospital in Shiraz, and 20 architecture and psychology experts participated in the survey. Final modeling of the data was done through path analysis.

Six factors were found to be effective by experts in reducing depression in therapeutic spaces: nature-oriented space, targeted social space, diverse space, visual comfort, logical process and safe space. On the part of patients, seven components were deemed to be effective: visual perception, naturalism, functionalism, physical security, logical process, psychological safety and diversity. Also, four main cycles were extracted from the final model with the direct effect of diversity and the other five cycles were mediated by naturalism.

A total of 15 interviews with architects and psychologists, who were available at the time of the study, were conducted in January 2018. The only general question during interviews was “In your opinion, what factors are effective in reducing the level of depression of patients in the design of treatment spaces?” This may have limited the range of factors that could be surveyed in the study. After collecting the effective factors from the aforementioned expert’s points of view, the questionnaire of experts was designed (Appendix). The expert questionnaires were distributed and edited in two stages in January 2019 among 20 architect experts who were available at the time of the study. The one-year interval between designing and administering the questionnaires occurred because of the limitations posed by the COVID-19 pandemic situation. However, the interval did not pose methodological obstacles for the study.

Evidence-based investigation of the effectiveness of proper design components of therapeutic spaces in reducing the symptoms of patients with chronic secondary depression has received little attention in the literature. Using a “conceptual model,” the present study brought the issue into its focus so as to find effective components in the design of treatment spaces that can alleviate depression symptoms in chronically hospitalized patients.

Purpose – To develop an alternate metaethical framework based upon a specific modality of difference.

Methodology/approach – A radicalisation of Moore's naturalistic fallacy and the application of the open question argument within the broader context of the continental tradition allow one to direct the ethical question away from non-naturalism and towards a speculative ethics.

Findings – Suggesting an ethical modality irreducible to ontological description or political prescription, the chapter argues for a metaethics of ‘exhortation’.

Originality/value of chapter – The chapter opens a new space for thinking ethics, and further encourages the continuing rapprochement between continental and analytical traditions in philosophy.

Practical implications – Questions of practical ethics will find new modes of engagement and expression in the context of a hortative metaethics.

The relationship between ontology, realism, and normativity is complex and contentious. While naturalist and realist stances have tended to ground questions of normativity in ontology and accounts of human nature, critical theories have been critical of the relationship between ontological and normative projects. Queer theory in particular has been critical of ontological endeavors. Exploring the problem of normativity and ontology, this paper will make the case that the critical realist ontology of open systems and complex, contingent, conjunctural causation deeply resonates with queer theory, generating a queer ontology that both allows for and undermines ontological and normative projects.

Human dignity is a crucial concept in international and domestic human rights law. It is understood to be the foundation of human rights, and while we know what human rights are, the nature, content, and grounds of human dignity remain unclear. The aim of this chapter is to propose scientific grounds for human dignity. In this context, the author will explore contemporary evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology, where it is claimed that human nature is constituted by tendencies to cooperate (Tomasello, 2009), or under a different formulation, by narrow altruism and imperfect prudence (Załuski, 2009). Evolutionary psychology holds that we have basic tendencies to cooperate with one another and to behave altruistically in order to achieve a common good. This means that our basic evolutionary default and scientifically proven mode of being are optimistic and can be labelled as morally good. The author argues that this human nature constitutes scientific grounds for human dignity. The author’s argument holds that since human dignity comprises the inherent worth of every human being, this positive moral fact about the scientifically understood human nature is human dignity. The author then present this issue within two broader philosophical frameworks of analytic philosophy – namely, naturalism (especially methodological naturalism) and metaphysical realism. Following this, the author contends that references to natural sciences in debates on the foundations of human dignity and human rights argue against the strongest objection to human rights – the objection of Western ethnocentrism.

This study examines the connections between subculture theory, symbolic interaction and the work of David Matza with a special focus on exploring alcohol consumption by young adults in the UK. We apply Matza ideas of the “techniques of neutralization,” “subterranean values,” and “drift” within an ethnographic study on alcohol to suggest that young people's “calculated hedonism” can be understood as a strategy of agency in the context of a subcultural setting. This article adds to the literature of symbolic interaction, subculture and the discipline of sociology by critically focusing on the work of David Matza from its reception in the 1960s to today as a central element of the new paradigm of cultural criminology. For us the sociological imagination is “alive and well” through Matza's advocacy of naturalism whereby he sought to integrate the work Chicago School under Park and Burgess with his assessment of the so-called Neo-Chicago School. In the literature Matza's work is often defined as symbolic interactionist we see his ambition in a wider sense of wanting sociology to recover human struggle and the active creation of meaning. Our approach is to understand the calculated hedonism of young adult use of alcohol through their humanity.

Purpose – To better understand the relation between Friedrich Hayek's “theoretical psychology” and contemporary connectionist theories of mind.

Methodology/approach – There is much in The Sensory Order that recommends the oft-made claim that Hayek anticipated connectionist theories of mind. To the extent that this is so, contemporary arguments against and for connectionism, as advanced by Jerry Fodor, Zenon Pylyshyn, and John Searle, are shown as applicable to theoretical psychology. However, the final section of this chapter highlights an important disanalogy between theoretical psychology and connectionist theories of mind.

Findings – While Hayek can be construed as a connectionist, it is argued that Hayek's ontological presuppositions are not shared by contemporary theorists of mind. In particular, modern critiques of Hayek's theoretical psychology qua connectionism assume that he attempts to provide an account of the mind within the confines of scientific naturalism. This essay argues that this assumption is false. Hayek's ontological presuppositions are more akin to Kant's, implying that Hayek's question is importantly different from those asked by contemporary theorists of mind.

Originality/value of the chapter – At a certain level of abstraction, a Hayakian machine is not unlike certain versions of a connectionist machine. However, to adequately assess the significance of The Sensory Order on its own terms, Hayek's project must be disentangled from our own ontological preoccupations.

Purpose – First, to look closely and critically at Hayek's treatment of science in The Sensory Order. This provides hints as to the difficulties in maintaining a theory of scientific knowledge as a selective sum of the identifiable contributions of individual scientists. Second, to generalize from Hayek's theory of how the brain generates an individual's knowledge to a theory of how science generates scientific knowledge, knowledge that is not a simple sum of individual contributions. Third, to apply this picture of science to understanding developments in postpositivist philosophy and post-Mertonian sociology of science.

Approach – We provide a short survey of the conventional understanding of science and scientific knowledge, including that of Hayek in The Sensory Order. We examine in more depth the ways in which developments in postpositivist philosophy and sociology have transformed our understanding of science. We describe how, by analogy with Hayek's theory of the brain, science can be seen as an adaptive system that adjusts to its environment by classifying the phenomena in that environment to which it is sensitive, and we apply this systemic picture of science with a view to integrating much of the more moderate content of recent philosophy and sociology of science.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

Learning is a natural human activity. The more trainers seek to contrive learning processes the more problems are created. The author argues for the removal of the mystification and jargon and for the re‐creation of the individual's instinctive and natural abilities to learn/help others to learn.