Postscript

Response by Gilbert Ryl

Thinking and Saying

Response by Gilbert Ryl

Thinking and Self-Teaching

Response by Gilbert Ryl

Personal and sub-personal: a defence of Dennett's early distinction

Since 1969, when Dennett introduced a distinction between personal and sub‐personal levels of explanation, many philosophers have used ‘sub‐personal’ very loosely, and Dennett himself has abandoned a view of the personal level as genuinely autonomous. I recommend a position in which Dennett's original distinction is crucial, by arguing that the phenomenon called mental causation is on view only at the properly personal level. If one retains the commit‐’ ments incurred by Dennett's early distinction, then one has a satisfactory anti‐physicalistic, anti‐dualist philosophy of mind. It neither interferes with the projects of sub‐personal psychology, nor encourages ; instrumentalism at the personal level. People lose sight of Dennett’s personal/sub-personal distinction because they free it from its philosophical moorings. A distinction that serves a philosophical purpose is typically rooted in doctrine; it cannot be lifted out of context and continue to do its work. So I shall start from Dennett’s distinction as I read it in its original context. And when I speak of ‘the distinction’, I mean to point not only towards the terms that Dennett first used to define it but also towards the philosophical setting within which its work was cut out

What Is an Act of Engagement? Between the Social, Collegial and Institutional Protocols

Engagement is not synonymous with commitment, even though both words are used in translations between English, French, and German. However, engagement is also not some supplementary phenomenon or a technical term that the phrase social acts already includes in itself or that the concepts of ‘commitment’ or ‘joint commitment’ somehow necessarily imply. In this article I would like to describe a special kind of social act and determine the function they have in relation between various agents. Most importantly, I would like to define their significance in the transformation of a group into an institution or higher order entity. My premise is that there are acts whose aim is to engage all others, since they refer to all of us together, and in so doing reduce negative (social) “acts” as well as various asocial behaviors within a group or institution. In this sense, engaged acts could alternatively also belong to a kind of institutional act, since they introduce certain adjustments to the institution, changing or modifying its rules, increasing its consistency and efficiency.First book series in Philosophy of the Social Sciences that specifically focuses on Philosophy of Sociality and Social Ontology. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality Volume 1

Shame, social deprivation, and the quality of the voice-hearing relationship.

OBJECTIVES: Many individuals hold different beliefs about the voices that they hear and have distinct relationships with them, the nature of which may determine the distress experienced. Understanding what factors contribute to these beliefs and relationships and consequently the resulting distress is important. The current research examined whether shame and social deprivation, in a sample of adult voice-hearers, were related to the relationships that individuals had with their voices or the beliefs that they held about them. DESIGN: The study utilized a cross-sectional, Internet-based design. METHODS: Eighty-seven adult voice-hearers from England were recruited to the online survey. Participants completed measures regarding shame, beliefs about voices, and relationships with voices and provided demographic information and postcodes that were used to refer to Index of Multiple Deprivation data. RESULTS: Social deprivation and shame were not associated. Shame was positively associated with variables describing negative voice-hearing beliefs/relationships but not positive voice-hearing beliefs/relationships. Principal component analysis on the eight voice-hearing variables yielded two components related to positive and negative voice-hearing qualities. A multiple regression conducted on the two components identified that shame was only associated with negative voice-hearing qualities. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that therapies that target shame may be helpful when working with negative voice-hearing beliefs and relationships. Future research should utilize experimental or longitudinal designs to examine the direction of the relationship. PRACTITIONER POINTS: The results contribute to the limited research evidence available regarding the relationship between shame and voice-hearing. The results suggest the utility of psychological therapies that focus on shame such as compassion-focused therapy and that conceptualize voices interpersonally such as cognitive analytic therapy. No conclusions can be made regarding causation. The sample size was relatively small, and results cannot be generalized to other areas of the United Kingdom. Future research should utilize experimental and longitudinal designs to examine the impact of shame on voice-hearing experiences and to examine other factors that may predict shame

Complementing retrofit with engagement: exploring energy consumption with social housing tenants

Councils and social housing organisations are looking to retrofit as a way to make their housing more energy efficient. Previous studies on energy use in social housing have generally focussed on the technological aspects (such as the potential savings possible by retrofitting this class of housing across the UK) or have involved one-off interventions or measures. During a two-year period, we worked with previously homeless people to reduce their energy consumption. The 32 participants lived in small blocks of flats (owned by a social housing organisation) that underwent retrofitting with air source heat pumps. We ran a three-phase tenant engagement programme to compare a range of approaches aimed at energy reduction. It was found that education, social norms, and self-awareness are all key components when it comes to initiating Environmentally Responsible Behaviours. The three approaches complemented each other, and these ought to be considered alongside technology provision if the aim is to reduce energy consumption. A number of reflections on the implementation of medium-term tenant engagement programmes are also presented

On the dynamical evolution of hot spots in powerful radio loud AGNs

We describe the dynamical evolution of hot spots velocity, pressure and mass density in radio loud active galactic nuclei (AGNs), taking proper account of (1) the conservations of the mass, momentum, and kinetic energy flux of the unshocked jet, (2) the deceleration process of the jet by shocks, and (3) the cocoon expansion without assuming the constant aspect ratio of the cocoon. By the detailed comparison with two dimensional relativistic hydrodynamic simulations, we show that our model well reproduces the whole evolution of relativistic jets. Our model can explain also the observational trends of the velocity, the pressure, the size, and mass density of hot spots in compact symmetric objects (CSOs) and FR II radio galaxies.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, accepted MNRA