The Polarity Fallacy

There are multifarious ways in which two terms can be “polar,” and this sometimes leads to confusion and fallacious reasoning. This paper identifies a fallacy of reasoning that arises from one such confusion

Polar Terms and Interdependent Concepts

The notion of polarity, of polar terms and concepts, has been extensively used in the history of philosophy. However, there has never been a careful analysis or elucidation of the very concept of polarity itself. This paper aims to provide just such an elucidation of the concept of polarity

Washing away Ebola : environmental stress, rumor, and ethnomedical response in a deadly epidemic

Summary Emerging infectious diseases are a critical issue in contemporary global environmental health. The 2014/15 Ebola epidemic in West Africa has become the large most widespread outbreak of the disease to date, Among its various impacts, the epidemic triggered a proliferation of emergent ethnomedical cultural responses. With the appearance of cases in Nigeria, information about these practices quickly spread through social media and other communication channels into neighboring Cameroon as people attempted to assuage their uncertainty and significant fear of the disease. We assess this process of information-sharing about ethnomedical practices like salt-water baths and drinking as an Ebola preventive in light of theories on the spread of rumors. Rumors are mechanisms groups use to help order their experience of reality during times of environmental uncertainty and growing confusion; however, rumors can also impact public attitudes and behaviors in ways that expose individuals to greater risk. Based on data collected from 90 interviews with participants in two cities in Cameroon, we demonstrate that information on the prophylactic use of salt-water baths and drinking spread quickly and widely. This case affirms that people do not remain passive during times of an environmental emergency and that work in environmental health must pay heed to processes of rumor formation, spread, and impact. Keywords: Ebola; social stress;rumor; epidemics; ethnomedicin

Comparing the Effect of Rational and Emotional Appeals on Donation Behavior

We present evidence from a pre-registered experiment indicating that a philosophical argument––a type of rational appeal––can persuade people to make charitable donations. The rational appeal we used follows Singer’s well-known “shallow pond” argument (1972), while incorporating an evolutionary debunking argument (Paxton, Ungar, & Greene 2012) against favoring nearby victims over distant ones. The effectiveness of this rational appeal did not differ significantly from that of a well-tested emotional appeal involving an image of a single child in need (Small, Loewenstein, and Slovic 2007). This is a surprising result, given evidence that emotions are the primary drivers of moral action, a view that has been very influential in the work of development organizations. We did not find support for our pre-registered hypothesis that combining our rational and emotional appeals would have a significantly stronger effect than either appeal in isolation. However, our finding that both kinds of appeal can increase charitable donations is cause for optimism, especially concerning the potential efficacy of well-designed rational appeals. We consider the significance of these findings for moral psychology, ethics, and the work of organizations aiming to alleviate severe poverty

Die Welt jenseits der Oszillografen : ein Streitgespräch zwischen dem Hirnforscher Wolf Singer und dem Philosophen Marcus Willaschek

Neurowissenschaftler fordern einen illusionslosen Umgang mit Begriffen wie Willensfreiheit und Bewusstsein. Philosophen kritisieren offen die Thesen von Hirnforschern. Stehen sich diese Positionen unversöhnlich gegenüber? Wo gibt es Möglichkeiten einer Annäherung, gar einer Kooperation? Der Religionsphilosoph Prof. Dr. Thomas M. Schmidt und der Biologe Stefan Kieß loten die Situation in Frankfurt aus; ihre Gesprächspartner sind der Hirnforscher Prof. Dr. Wolf Singer (links), Direktor am Max-Planck-Institut für Hirnforschung, und Prof. Dr. Marcus Willaschek (rechts), Philosoph an der Universität Frankfurt

Abnormal connectional fingerprint in schizophrenia: a novel network analysis of diffusion tensor imaging data

The graph theoretical analysis of structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data has received a great deal of interest in recent years to characterize the organizational principles of brain networks and their alterations in psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia. However, the characterization of networks in clinical populations can be challenging, since the comparison of connectivity between groups is influenced by several factors, such as the overall number of connections and the structural abnormalities of the seed regions. To overcome these limitations, the current study employed the whole-brain analysis of connectional fingerprints in diffusion tensor imaging data obtained at 3 T of chronic schizophrenia patients (n = 16) and healthy, age-matched control participants (n = 17). Probabilistic tractography was performed to quantify the connectivity of 110 brain areas. The connectional fingerprint of a brain area represents the set of relative connection probabilities to all its target areas and is, hence, less affected by overall white and gray matter changes than absolute connectivity measures. After detecting brain regions with abnormal connectional fingerprints through similarity measures, we tested each of its relative connection probability between groups. We found altered connectional fingerprints in schizophrenia patients consistent with a dysconnectivity syndrome. While the medial frontal gyrus showed only reduced connectivity, the connectional fingerprints of the inferior frontal gyrus and the putamen mainly contained relatively increased connection probabilities to areas in the frontal, limbic, and subcortical areas. These findings are in line with previous studies that reported abnormalities in striatal–frontal circuits in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, highlighting the potential utility of connectional fingerprints for the analysis of anatomical networks in the disorder