Reflexive Monism

Reflexive monism is, in essence, an ancient view of how consciousness relates to the material world that has, in recent decades, been resurrected in modern form. In this paper I discuss how some of its basic features differ from both dualism and variants of physicalist and functionalist reductionism, focusing on those aspects of the theory that challenge deeply rooted presuppositions in current Western thought. I pay particular attention to the ontological status and seeming “out-thereness” of the phenomenal world and to how the “phenomenal world” relates to the “physical world”, the “world itself”, and processing in the brain. In order to place the theory within the context of current thought and debate, I address questions that have been raised about reflexive monism in recent commentaries and also evaluate competing accounts of the same issues offered by “transparency theory” and by “biological naturalism”. I argue that, of the competing views on offer, reflexive monism most closely follows the contours of ordinary experience, the findings of science, and common sense

'Requisite irony' and the knowledge based economy: a critical discourse analysis of the drafting of education policy in the european union

This chapter makes a case for combining the critical analysis of discourse with an embrace of ‘self-reflexive irony’ (Jessop, 2002, 2004a) in the investigation of the articulations between the Knowledge Based Economy (KBE) and education policy in the European Union (EU). Irony is embraced as a topic within the study of EU governance of education policy in so far as it contributes to an analysis of the activities of supranational and national actors within complex multi-scalar political structures. In addition, the implications of self-reflexive irony are considered so as to suggest a series of clarifications for the process of analysing policy texts within a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework (Fairclough,1989,1996,1999). In essence, the chapter does two things. It interrogates the contradictory strategies and sources of conflict in the production of EU scale education policy texts and questions both the significance and the stability of the articulation of education reform with KBE discourses. At the same time, the chapter argues that the production of such texts contingently but incrementally contributes to the production of a relatively stable governance framework for EU scale education policy and that it is to the significance of this that a critical discourse analysis leads

Ethical beginnings: Reflexive questioning in designing child sexuality research

Counselling young children referred for sexualised behaviour can challenge therapists’ ideas about childhood and sexuality. This area of practice is complex and sensitive, and calls upon collaboration with a range of significant adults in children's lives. Purpose: This paper examines a researcher's process of movement from counselling practice into qualitative research practice, and the use of reflexive questioning to explore ethical issues within the study. Design: Shaped by social constructionist ideas and discourse theory, ethical questions are outlined within the design stage of a doctoral research project on sexuality in children's lives in Aotearoa New Zealand. Limitations: This paper explores ethics in the design of a current study: there are no results or conclusions

"Self-Knowledge and the Science of the Soul in Buridan's Quaestiones De Anima"

Buridan holds that the proper subject of psychology (i.e., the science undertaken in Aristotle’s De Anima) is the soul, its powers, and characteristic functions. But, on his view, the science of psychology should not be understood as including the body nor even the soul-body composite as its proper subject. Rather its subject is just “the soul in itself and its powers and functions insofar as they stand on the side of the soul". Buridan takes it as obvious that, even thus narrowly construed, such a science is possible. To the extent that this science includes the human or intellective soul, however, Buridan’s claim regarding its possibility is far from obvious. After all, like most of his contemporaries, Buridan takes the human soul to be immaterial. Thus, he readily admits that “the intellect cannot be sensed” and its operations are likewise inaccessible to the senses. Yet, on Buridan's broadly empiricist theory of knowledge, all (human) knowledge, including knowledge of the intellect or intellective soul, takes its start in the senses. How, then, is a science of the human soul possible? What is the nature or source of our knowledge of the intellect? In this paper, I reconstruct Buridan's answer to these questions. My discussion divides roughly into two parts. In the first, I set out the main elements of Buridan’s account of how we come to cognize the intellect, focusing on what he says about the genesis of our concept of the intellect. I then consider his account of our cognition of our own intellective states. As the discussion in part one make clear, Buridan holds that our concepts of intellect and of intellective states are both derived (inferentially) from subjective “experience” of our own states and rational activities. In part two, therefore, I try to elucidate Buridan’s notion of experience. Ultimately, I argue that it is a non-conceptual, non-discursive mode of self-awareness. I suggest, moreover, that it might best be understood in terms of our own notion of phenomenal consciousness. On the interpretation I advance, then, it turns out that, for Buridan, our concept of the intellect itself and, hence, the science of (human) psychology in general, is ultimately grounded in phenomenal experience of our own intellective states

Social Multi-Criteria Evaluation (SMCE)

The main argument developed here is the proposal of the concept of “Social Multi-Criteria Evaluation” (SMCE) as a possible useful framework for the application of social choice to the difficult policy problems of our Millennium, where, as stated by Funtowicz and Ravetz, “facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent”. This paper starts from the following main questions: 1. Why “Social” Multi-criteria Evaluation? 2. How such an approach should be developed? The foundations of SMCE are set up by referring to concepts coming from complex system theory and philosophy, such as reflexive complexity, post-normal science and incommensurability. To give some operational guidelines on the application of SMCE basic questions to be answered are: 1. How is it possible to deal with technical incommensurability? 2. How can we deal with the issue of social incommensurability? To answer these questions, by using theoretical considerations and lessons learned from realworld case studies, is the main objective of the present article.Multi-Criteria Analysis, Economics, Complexity Theory, Environment, Social Choice, Post-Normal Science, Incommensurability, Ethics

Fostering Creative Thinking and Reflexive Evaluation in Searching: Instructional Scaffolding and the Zone of Proximal Development in Information Literacy Acquisition

Searching for information, which is not as easy as many students believe, requires creativity, formative evaluation, and persistence. Cultivating proficient and expert searches requires more than the vicarious and enactive experiences described by Bandura1 that are frequently employed in traditional library instruction: students need to be supported and coached in working in their Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which stimulates learning.

Unimodality Problems in Ehrhart Theory

Ehrhart theory is the study of sequences recording the number of integer points in non-negative integral dilates of rational polytopes. For a given lattice polytope, this sequence is encoded in a finite vector called the Ehrhart $h^*$-vector. Ehrhart $h^*$-vectors have connections to many areas of mathematics, including commutative algebra and enumerative combinatorics. In this survey we discuss what is known about unimodality for Ehrhart $h^*$-vectors and highlight open questions and problems.Comment: Published in Recent Trends in Combinatorics, Beveridge, A., et al. (eds), Springer, 2016, pp 687-711, doi 10.1007/978-3-319-24298-9_27. This version updated October 2017 to correct an error in the original versio

An Euler characteristic for modules of finite {G}-dimension

We extend Auslander and Buchsbaum's Euler characteristic from the category of finitely generated modules of finite projective dimension to the category of modules of finite G-dimension using Avramov and Martsinkovsky's notion of relative Betti numbers. We prove analogues of some properties of the classical invariant and provide examples showing that other properties do not translate to the new context. One unexpected property is in the characterization of the extremal behavior of this invariant: the vanishing of the Euler characteristic of a module M of finite G-dimension implies the finiteness of the projective dimension of M. We include two applications of the Euler characteristic as well as several explicit calculations.Comment: 20 pages, uses xypic, minor changes to final version, to appear in Math. Scan