Homelessness among female veterans is a problem that is likely to increase as growing numbers of women in the United States military reestablish themselves into their communities as veterans. The purpose of this quantitavie quasi-experimental study was to determine whether there are differences in posttraumatic stress (PTSD), depression, and hopelessness in homeless versus nonhomeless female veterans who have experienced at least 1 U.S. military deployment. Four theories served as the basis for this research: the cognitive theory of depression, conditioning theory, ecological theory, and the hopelessness of depression theory. The data were collected from 88 female veterans who were deployed at least once. The variables were assessed using the Posttraumatic Checklist–Military Version posttraumatic stress disorder total score,theBeck Depression Inventory-II, total score and, the Beck Hopelessness Scale total score. The 1-way MANOVA findings indicated that there was a statistically significant difference between homeless and nonhomeless female veterans who experienced PTSD and depression but not hopelessness. This research will better serve the VA, clinicians, and communities to assist providing for the psychological and mental health needs required by these soldiers. The research findings may contribute to the provision of permanent and supportive housing for female veterans reintegrating back into civilian life.

The thesis of my dissertation is that Kant's theory of the social contract, which is the central concept of his political philosophy, provides, when suitably reconstructed, an adequate theoretical foundation for liberal democracy. I take liberal democracy to consist of three components: first, the rule of law; second, democratic self-rule (either representative, direct, or some combination of the two); and third, the recognition and institutional guarantee of the rights of individuals. In the dissertation, I take as my starting point Kant's conception of autonomy. For Kant, the idea of the social contract explains how individual moral agents can maintain their autonomy in the context of community. The social contract resolves the conflict between moral autonomy and political authority by defining a model of civil society in which free, equal, and independent rational agents collectively legislate the public laws that are to govern their external relations, which are essentially property relations. Ideal civil society, then, is a condition of maximum equal freedom for rational agents who interact with one another.

No description available.

No description available.

<p> A holoflux theory of consciousness as energy is hypothesized and shown to support both local and non-local properties. This thesis emerges from an integral evaluation of evidence drawn from three sources: (1) the holonomic mind/brain theories of Karl Pribram, (2) the ontological interpretation of quantum theory by David Bohm, and (3) the hyperphysics of consciousness developed by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Applying an integral methodology to superimpose and correlate seemingly disparate concepts from among these sources and others, a composite theory emerges, a &ldquo;holoflux&rdquo; theory of consciousness, after the term favored by Karl Pribram to describe David Bohm&rsquo;s &ldquo;holomovement.&rdquo; This Pribram&ndash;Bohm composite holoflux theory is shown to be congruent with established principles of physics, mathematics, and electrical engineering, as well as with what Pierre Teilhard de Chardin termed &ldquo;hyperphysics.&rdquo; </p><p> Extending the panpsychist paradigm that consciousness is inherent in the structure of the universe, the thesis describes a dynamic energy process bridging the explicate space&ndash;time domain with a transcendent flux domain located at the spatial center, everywhere. This center is hypothesized to be synonymous with three key concepts: Karl Pribram&rsquo;s &ldquo;flux domain,&rdquo; David Bohm&rsquo;s &ldquo;implicate order,&rdquo; and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin&rsquo;s &ldquo;point Omega.&rdquo; </p><p> Commonly held arguments, both philosophical and technical, dismissive of energy fields as a possible substrate of consciousness, are examined and refuted. Major theories of consciousness developed by Pribram, Bohm, and Teilhard de Chardin are examined in detail, and presented in the context of their life experiences. Extending their theories, the holoflux theory of consciousness views reality as one energy, cycling mathematically, lens-like, in a process of transformation manifesting in three modes: (1) electromagnetic energy in space&ndash;time, (2) holoflux energy in a transcendent order, and (3) vibrating isospheres at the boundary gap separating the implicate from the explicate orders. </p><p> Pierre Teilhard de Chardin&rsquo;s more technical concepts (e.g., centro-complexity, radial energy, tangential energy, complexity-consciousness, noogenesis, centrology, and Omega) are evaluated in detail, and interpreted within the framework of holoflux theory, to provide new insights into his hyperphysics of centro-complexity. </p><p> The plausibility of this holoflux theory is examined through identification of correlations between physiological, electromagnetic, and geophysical measurements. </p>

Evolutionary psychology has recently developed out of dissatisfaction with the Standard Social Science Model utilised by mainstream psychology. This model focuses on culture and reason as the underlying cause of human behaviour and proposes that the mind is a 'general purpose learning device' (Siegert & Ward, 2002). Here the mind is seen as a blank slate at birth, which is subsequently influenced by experience, environment and culture. Biological variables are minimised or ignored. However it seems that all human behaviour cannot fully be explained by the focus on nurture in the Standard Social Science Model; sexual jealousy, parental investment, and mating preferences are examples which are not fully explained by learning or environmental experience. On the other hand, evolutionary psychology, founded on the principles of cognitive science and evolutionary biology, argues that a person's nature is the primary cause of their behaviour, with the influences of nurture being of lesser importance. According to these principles, evolutionary psychology has been very successful in providing explanations, for example in the areas of human mate selection and parental investment. However evolutionary psychology has received criticism on a number of counts, including its supposed reductionism, and, its reliance on 'just so' stories which are untestable, hypothesised scenarios which look to the past in order to explain the evolution of human behavioural features. With the above mentioned matters as background, this thesis investigated whether evolutionary psychology offers a new paradigm for integrating psychology with science, and if so, how it accomplishes this. In investigating this, conceptions of science, psychology, and evolutionary theory, in particular evolutionary psychology, were examined. More specifically, issues addresses included why evolutionary psychology is dissatisfied with the SSSM, the notion of the mind as blank slate, the nature-nurture paradigm, and the mind as a general purpose learning device. Two aspects of evolutionary theory are described, natural and sexual selection, in terms of their importance to evolutionary psychology. The main arguments of evolutionary psychology as a discipline are outlined, looking at its aims, and the ways in which it combines the disciplines of evolutionary biology and cognitive psychology toward a new integrative model for studying human behaviour. A case study demonstrates how evolutionary psychology offers a useful explanation of mate selection. This thesis then turns to the philosophy of science, setting out the differences between Karl Popper and Imre Lakatos' theories, and focusing on the latter's theory as a model of scientific philosophy which could be useful for evolutionary psychology, including discussing how this could be best achieved. This thesis then sets out various criticisms of evolutionary psychology, including the critique of domain-specific modularity, the focus on the Pleistocene period as problematic, the over-reliance on natural selection, just-so stories, the reductionism of evolutionary psychology, and that it is politically conservative. This thesis concludes that the attempt of evolutionary psychology to combine cognitive science and evolutionary theory has been successful in showing how the integration of psychology into the sciences is not only possible but inevitable.

<p> This dissertation looks at the life and work of famed English Aristocrat Robert Boyle. Specifically, I examine his treatment of generation and its organizing forces&mdash;seminal principles, plastic powers, and petrifick spirits. Generation, I argue, provided the context by which Boyle was introduced both to chymistry and anatomy. The problem of generation would remain at the forefront of his concerns as he experimented in chymistry, pneumatics, minerals, anatomy, transmutation, and plants. Looking at the various communities in Europe with which Robert Boyle interacted, I show that the mechanical philosophy was actually quite diverse. As one of the most influential scholars of his time, Boyle presents a distinctly mechanical account of generation that would have a profound effect upon Western science.</p>

<p> Cognitive science has been beset for thirty years by foundational disputes about the nature and extension of cognition&mdash;e.g. whether cognition is necessarily representational, whether cognitive processes extend outside the brain or body, and whether plants or microbes have them. Whereas previous philosophical work aimed to settle these disputes, I aim to understand what conception of cognition scientists could share given that they disagree so fundamentally. To this end, I develop a number of variations on traditional conceptual explication, and defend a novel explication of cognition called the sensitive management hypothesis.</p><p> Since expert judgments about the extension of &ldquo;cognition&rdquo; vary so much, I argue that there is value in explication that accurately models the variance in judgments rather than taking sides or treating that variance as noise. I say of explications that accomplish this that they are <i> ecumenically extensionally adequate</i>. Thus, rather than adjudicating whether, say, plants can have cognitive processes like humans, an ecumenically adequate explication should classify these cases differently: human cognitive processes as paradigmatically cognitive, and plant processes as controversially cognitive.</p><p> I achieve ecumenical adequacy by articulating conceptual explications with <i>parameters</i>, or terms that can be assigned a number of distinct interpretations based on the background commitments of participants in a discourse. For example, an explication might require that cognition cause &ldquo;behavior,&rdquo; and imply that plant processes are cognitive or not depending on whether anything plants do can be considered &ldquo;behavior.&rdquo; Parameterization provides a unified treatment of embattled concepts by isolating topics of disagreement in a small number of parameters.</p><p> I incorporate these innovations into an account on which cognition is the &ldquo;sensitive management of organismal behavior.&rdquo; The sensitive management hypothesis is ecumenically extensionally adequate, accurately classifying a broad variety of cases as paradigmatically or controversially cognitive phenomena. I also describe an extremely permissive version of the sensitive management hypothesis, arguing that it has the potential to explain several features of cognitive scientific discourse, including various facts about the way cognitive scientists ascribe representations to cognitive systems. </p>

Several current debates in cognitive science and philosophy of mind turn on the nature of cognition. For one, influential comparative psychologists have argued that the distinction between cognition and mere association---which has played a central role in the methodology of the discipline since its inception---is increasingly untenable and should be rejected. For another, the "extended cognition" debate now turns on whether there is a "mark of the cognitive" which shows that cognitive processes do not extend beyond the brain. Finally, longstanding philosophical problems (such as the problems of mental causation and mental content) correspond to practical challenges that organisms face every day: How are organisms able to organize their minds such that their mental states reliably cause behaviors appropriate to their contents? / I argue that the key to understanding cognition lies in the brain's capacity to detect its own representational errors. To cognize is not just to be capable of representing the world, but also to be capable of improving one's representation of that world by rationally responding to evidence of error. Close engagement with the cognitive neuroscience of learning reveals a distinctive kind of error-correction learning focused on the mammalian medial temporal lobe and its functional analogues in other classes. This neural story suggests a series of reforms of psychological practice in the face of its current conceptual challenges. Furthermore, the account has significant philosophical benefits in making sense of the purported normative character of cognition, in that the brain's ability to represent is grounded in its ability to continually improve its causal contact with the contents of its representations.

Scientific communnities have proven to be extremely successful at solving problems. They are inherently parallel systems and their macroscopic nature makes them amenable to careful study. In this paper the character of scientific research is examined drawing on sources in the philosophy and history of science. We maintain that the success of scientific research depends critically on its concurrency and pluralism. A variant of the language Ether is developed that embodies notions of concurrency necessary to emulate some of the problem solving behavior of scientific communities. Capabilities of scientific communities are discussed in parallel with simplified models of these capabilities in this language.