Near-Death Experience,Consciousness, and the Brain: A New Concept about the Continuity of Our Consciousness Based on Recent Scientific Research on Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest

In this article first some general aspects of near-death experience will be discussed, followed by questions about consciousness and its relation to brain function. Details will be described from our prospective study on near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest in the Netherlands, which was published in the Lancet in 2001. In this study it could not be shown that physiological, psychological, or pharmacological factors caused these experiences after cardiac arrest. Neurophysiology in cardiac arrest and in a normal functioning brain will be explained. Finally, implications for consciousness studies will be discussed, and how it could be possible to explain the continuity of our consciousness. Scientific study of NDE pushes us to the limits of our medical and neurophysiologic ideas about the range of human consciousness and mind–brain relation.     

Quine's Argument from Despair

Quine's argument for a naturalized epistemology is routinely perceived as an argument from despair: traditional epistemology must be abandoned because all attempts to deduce our scientific theories from sense experience have failed. In this paper, I will show that this picture is historically inaccurate and that Quine's argument against first philosophy is considerably stronger and subtler than the standard conception suggests. For Quine, the first philosopher's quest for foundations is inherently incoherent; the very idea of a self-sufficient sense datum language is a mistake, there is no science-independent perspective from which to validate science. I will argue that a great deal of the confusion surrounding Quine's argument is prompted by certain phrases in his seminal ‘Epistemology Naturalized’. Scrutinizing Quine's work both before and after the latter paper provides a better key to understanding his remarkable views about the epistemological relation between theory and evidence.     

Not Enough of a ‘Dark’ Trait? Linking Machiavellianism to Job Performance

Machiavellianism is typically considered to encompass rather negatively connoted characteristics such as being ruthless, deceitful or self‐centred. Concerning its influence on job performance, there have been notions about a positive linear association as well as a negative one. Somewhat reflecting these different views, a recent meta‐analysis regarding this link indicated both large variability in respective empirical investigations and no substantial linear association. Herein, we aimed to integrate the theoretical underpinnings of both perspectives of a linear link by proposing an inverted U‐shaped relation between Machiavellianism and job performance. Using data from n = 235 dyads of self‐rating and colleague rating, results supported this hypothesis with regard to the three dimensions of organisational citizenship behaviour, whereas no support was found with regard to task performance. More precisely, intermediate levels of Machiavellianism yielded the highest organisational citizenship behaviour as compared with both lower and higher levels—although employees with lower levels had outcomes nearly as high as those of employees with intermediate levels. Further, tenure was found to moderate the curvilinear relation between Machiavellianism and organisational citizenship behaviour directed at individuals. In sum, this investigation might help to disentangle different understandings of the effects of Machiavellianism in organisational life and beyond. Copyright © 2013 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Does Doxastic Justification Have a Basing Requirement?

The distinction between propositional and doxastic justification is the distinction between having justification to believe that P (= propositional justification) versus having a justified belief in P (= doxastic justification). The focus of this paper is on doxastic justification and on what conditions are necessary for having it. In particular, I challenge the basing demand on doxastic justification, i.e. the idea that one can have a doxastically justified belief only if one's belief is based on an epistemically appropriate reason. This demand has been used to refute versions of coherentism and conservatism about perceptual justification, as well as to defend phenomenal ‘conservatism’ and other views besides. In what follows, I argue that there is virtually no reason to think there is a basing demand on doxastic justification. I also argue that, even if the basing demand were true, it would still fail to serve the dialectical purposes for which it has been employed in arguments concerning coherentism, conservatism, and phenomenal ‘conservatism’. I conclude by discussing the fact that knowledge has a basing demand and I show why this needn't raise the same sort of problems for coherentism and conservatism that doxastic justification's basing demand seemed to raise.     

ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHALLENGE OF CLONING

Scientific achievements, especially in contemporary biology, have led and continue to lead to uncertainties for some believers with regard to their understanding of the role of God as the creator. This essay, avoiding philosophical jargon, expounds the stance of Islamic philosophy on this matter and argues that such anxiety and doubt are unfounded. Drawing upon the thousand‐year‐old distinction between two types of cause, real and preparatory, as formulated by Muslim philosophers, the argument demonstrates that seeing biological advances as rivaling God's creation, as traditionally understood in the Abrahamic religions, is a premature judgment based on a faulty conflation. This comes to light most clearly through Mulla Sadra's analysis of causality, the far‐reaching implications of which are briefly mentioned.     

The benefits of knowing what you know (and what you don’t): How calibration affects credibility

People tend to believe, and take advice from, informants who are highly confident. However, people use more than a mere “confidence heuristic.” We believe that confidence is influential because—in the absence of other information—people assume it is a valid cue to an informant’s likelihood of being correct. However, when people get evidence about an informant’s calibration (i.e., her confidence-accuracy relationship) they override reliance on confidence or accuracy alone. Two experiments in which participants choose between two opposing witnesses to a car accident show that neither confidence nor accuracy alone explains judgments of credibility; rather, whether a person is seen as credible ultimately depends on whether the person demonstrates good calibration. Credibility depends on whether sources were justified in believing what they believed.     

类别空间关系加工系统和数量空间关系加工系统的分离 ——来自多领域的研究证据

Kosslyn认为人类的空间关系加工系统分为类别空间关系加工子系统和数量空间关系加工子系统,这两个子系统不仅存在功能上的分离,并且存在大脑神经水平的分离,这种神经水平的分离表现为两种空间关系加工的大脑半球偏向,即类别空间关系加工的左半球偏向与数量空间关系加工的右半球偏向。对两种空间关系加工的研究,涉及的领域从低水平的空间知觉,至表象、记忆、语言、行动及物体识别等,涉及的研究方法包括半视野速示法,神经网络模拟,PET, fMRI, ERP, rTMS,脑损伤病人的研究及比较动物研究。综合现有研究,虽然大多数研究中得到的脑半球偏向为两种加工子系统在神经水平的分离提供了证据,但不同研究中脑半球偏向的获得是相当不稳定的,并且受到研究方法因素的影响。尽管造成神经水平的分离似乎与大脑左右半球对具有不同感受野特征的神经元输出的偏向有一定的关系,但这仍需要进一步的研究证据     

中国传统道德关系的特点

中国传统道德关系即中国传统社会的道德主体之间根据"礼"所结成的道德权利与道德义务关系,它是中国传统社会一种特殊的社会关系.这种特殊的社会关系主要有等级性、求和性、道德权利与道德义务分配的极性、虚拟性、变动性、形而上性、不协调性、威权性等特点.     

Emergent Monism and the Classical Doctrine of the Soul

Traditional Christian belief in the existence of human life after death within a transformed material universe should be capable of rational justification if one chooses carefully the philosophical scheme underlying those claims. One should not have to appeal simply to the power of a loving God to justify one's beliefs. A revision of Whitehead's metaphysical scheme is proposed that allows one to render these classical Christian beliefs at least plausible to a broad range of contemporary thinkers as a consequence of a cosmology based on the principle of universal intersubjectivity and the need for a common ground between opposing subjectivities.