Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2002. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 246-250). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

How do we recognize that someone is thinking that the train is running late, desiring another cookie, or intending to make coffee? What is the cognitive process by which we come to attribute to another individual the belief, for instance, that Barack Obama is President? For the past few decades, philosophers working on Folk Psychology--i.e., those involved in the study of how people typically form judgments about others’ mental states--have focused largely on questions involving everyday attributions of mentality in terms of intentional states, like beliefs and desires. What I dub ‘the New Folk Psychology’ expands on this tradition to include everyday attributions of phenomenal consciousness (i.e., feelings and experiences). How, that is, do we come to recognize something as being capable of and having phenomenal states, like feeling happy or experience pleasure? The project is organized around three core topics. The first component attempts to identify the process underlying everyday attributions of consciousness. This task is carried out with an eye towards addressing issues in the current folk psychology of consciousness debate, such as whether ordinary psychology incorporates something like the philosopher’s distinction between intentionality and phenomenology. My work (Arico 2010, Arico, et al. 2011) advocates a model of mind-attribution called the Agency Model. According to this model, whenever we represent an entity as having certain properties (for example, facial features), we automatically categorize that thing as an AGENT. This AGENT-categorization then activates a cascade of behavioral dispositions, including the disposition to attribute both intentionality and phenomenology. The second component concerns ways that the process underlying everyday attributions of consciousness might be related to psychological process involved in moral perception. My work to date has focused largely on the question of how it is that we come to see an entity as a moral being, as something that deserves moral consideration and/or is subject to moral evaluation. I argue that existing accounts of such moral perception are based on problematic experimental data (Arico, forthcoming). I then propose an amended Agency Model (Arico, under review), according to which seeing an entity as a moral being--like attributing it consciousness--is a consequence of categorizing that thing as an AGENT. I then utilize this cognitive picture in an attempt to explain the enduring normative ethical debate over which kind of mental capacity most fundamentally grounds moral standing.

Sistemologai laiko IVVS kompiuterizuotu įrankiu ir išskiria prioritetą konstruoti organizacijų sistemas pagal minties veiklos metodiką. Tačiau IVVS kokybė, išsamumas ir nauda suponuoja, kad tokie organizacijų projektavimo pusfabrikačiai yra verti mokslininkų nuostatų peržiūros. Organizacinės sistemos kaip visumos nesuvokimas, neišnaudoja sinergijos ir veda į nepakankamą ir neefektyvų valdymą. Asmuo turintis sisteminio mąstymo gebėjimą - organizuoja firmą kaip sistemą, apimdamas visus sistemos komponentus, kurių kiekvienas yra prasmingas visos sistemos atžvilgiu. Darbe analizuojama kokie organizacijų bruožai ir vadovų savybės lemia organizacijų projektavimo būdą. Darbo tyrimu buvo ieškoma dėsningumų, kurie leistų aiškiau suvokti organizacijų projektavimo aspektus. Tyrimas atskleidė daugumos vadovų sisteminio mąstymo kompetenciją. Išryškėjo tendencija, jog gamybinėse ir paslaugų organizacijose sisteminis mąstymas vadovų tarpe pasitaiko dažniau, nei prekybinėse įmonėse. Prekybos įmonės linkusios rinktis IVVS, nei kurti organizacijos projektą savarankiškai. Sisteminio mąstymo neturintys vadovai nepasitiki išoriniais konsultantais, bet pasibaigus projektui geriau vertina jų darbą, nei sisteminį mąstymą turintys vadovai. / Scientists of systemology propose SBMS (Soft of Business Management System) are just computer-integrated tool and recommend to project organization using a methodology of minds activity. However a quality, particularity and usefulness of SBMS lead to scientists attitudes review. Senselessness of the organizations systems leads to waste of synergy and insufficient management. A person gifted systematic intellection can organize a company as the system, including all components that are important according the system unit. Diploma paper author analyses organizations features and managers characteristics that determine method of organizations projection and looked for regularities that allow bettering understanding the aspects organizations projection. Research disclosed majority of managers have the systematic intellection and show a tendency – mostly managers from manufacturing and service companies have systematic intellection than managers from trade companies which prefer to use SBMS than to project organization self-sufficiently. Managers without systematic intellection distrust outside consultants, but evaluate the consultants better than managers with systematic intellection.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xiii, 156 p.; also includes graphics. Includes bibliographical references (p. 147-156). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

Title: Electricity and magnetism: Hands-on minds-on approach Author: Věra Koudelková Department: Department of Physics Education Supervisor: Doc. RNDr. Leoš Dvořák, CSc., KDF Abstract: The PhD. thesis is focused on high school students' understanding of electricity and magnetism and on experiments which can help students to develop this understanding. The thesis can be divided into two parts: In the first research part typical misconceptions of high school students in the area of electricity and magnetism are described, both misconceptions known from foreign literature and results of Czech Conceptual Test of Electricity and Magnetism. This test is based on the known Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism, but unlike it and other conceptual tests in electricity and magnetism this new Czech test is intended for high school students. The second part of the thesis is developmental. It contains methodical materials, lab works and experiments which partly arise from the discovered misconceptions. In this part of the work four learning sequences (we chose topics, which were identified as problematic for students), four laboratory works and 13 experiments are described. Prepared materials were verified during instructions in high school and during conferences for physics teachers. Experiences with them are...

A Tese constitui uma reflexão sobre emergentes comportamentos coletivos e individuais associados às TICs – Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação - e que a partir de abordagem de pesquisa baseada na Perspectiva Eco-Sistêmica (construtivista, interacionista, sociocultural, afetiva e transcendente), procura reproduzir um caminho de referencias e reflexões teóricas e pessoais, individuais e coletivas. Pode-se considerar como ponto de partida desta Tese, a visualização de comportamentos individuais e coletivos relacionados às TICs associados a uma crescente necessidade de expressão e compartilhamento. Embora a Tese não esteja limitada ao aspecto musical, a reflexão que resultou neste trabalho, teve como principio a observação de uma intensa e crescente atividade musical, que não se limitavam apenas a trocas e escuta de arquivos, mas também a comportamentos protagonistas, criativos, não hierárquicos, relacionados à intervenção sobre os arquivos, composições coletivas, manipulação de códigos abertos e comunidades open code, e que são investigados pela linha de pesquisa em Música Ubíqua, que constitui uma das referências da Tese.Todos esses comportamentos, de forma geral, associados aos jovens, mas cada vez mais generalizados na sociedade e ampliados a todas as áreas. Comportamentos tribais segundo Maffesoli, ligados a uma visão cíclica que manifesta a necessidade humana de expressão de seus anseios, que são caracterizados por um estar junto, um presenteísmo, e um reenraizamento como necessidades profundas humanas, em resposta a uma sociedade estagnada pela racionalidade excessiva. Comportamentos que frisam, segundo Heidegger, o aspecto relacional do ser-aí como essencialmente ser-com-o-outro, e do jogo como parte da existência e dessa relação. Jogo, que por sua vez, se associa diretamente às nossas formas de relação com às TICs. Comportamentos emergentes que, para Johnson, estão ligados a padrões observáveis em diversos sistemas na natureza e na sociedade. Todos esses aspectos são relacionados à visão complexa de Morin sobre homo, em todas suas faces de manifestação no mundo: sapiens,faber,demens, ludens,mythologicus, que por sua vez impregnam nossas próprias relações com o mundo que construímos, e com a tecnologia que retroage sobre o mundo e sobre nós. Comportamentos que trazem potencialmente consigo um profundo questionamento do que somos, de nossos determinismos e possibilidades, de nossas constituições física, cerebral, mental, espiritual. De nossos limites e possibilidades. De nossos avanços e recuos. Trazem a possibilidade de reflexão sobre a ciência, e as tecnociências, que produzimos e que nos produz. Todas relações que refletem na forma como vemos, refletimos e fazemos educação em todos os níveis. A ideia das Diásporas mentais e das Mentes diaspóricas, procura sintetizar este movimento complexo, que nos potencializa a possibilidade de ser ao mesmo tempo, em vários espaços, tempos, que nos desimpede de limitações físicas, locais, sociais, que reafirma nossa identidade complexa, física e não-física, cerebral e mental, espiritual, contraditória e consensual, coletiva e individual. / The thesis is a reflection on emerging collective behavior and individual associated with ICT - Information and Communication Technologies -, and that from a research approach based on the Eco-Systemic Perspective (constructivist, interactionist, socio-cultural, emotional and transcendent), seeks to reproduce a path of references and theoretical personal, individual and collective reflections. The visualization of individual and collective behaviors related to ICTs associated with a growing need for expression and sharing may be considered as the starting point of this thesis. Although the thesis is not limited to the musical aspect, the reflection that resulted from this work had as a principal an intense and growing musical activity observation , which was not limited to file listening and exchanges, but also to the observation of protagonist, creative, not hierarchical behavior , related to the intervention on archives, collective composition, manipulation of open codes and open code communities, which are investigated by the line of research on Ubiquitous Music, which is one of the Thesis´ references. All these behaviors are generally associated with youth, but also are increasingly widespread in society and extended to all areas. Tribal behaviors according to Maffesoli, linked to a cyclical view that expresses the human need for their desires´ expression, which are characterized by a being together, a presenteeism, and a rerooting as a deep human need, in response to a stagnant society by an excessive rationality. Behaviors that, according to Heidegger, emphasize the relational aspect of being-there as essentially as being-with-the-other, and the game as part of the existence and this relationship. A game, which in his turn is directly associated to our way of relating to ICTs. Emergent behaviors that for Johnson are linked to the observable patterns in many systems in nature and in society. All these aspects are related to the complex view of Morin on homo in all its facets of manifestation in the world: sapiens, faber, demens, ludens, mythologicus, which in turn permeate our own relationship with the world we have built, and with the technology that retroacts on the world and on us. Behaviors that potentially bring with them a deep questioning of what we are, our possibilities and determinism, of our physical, brain, mental and spiritual constitution, of our limits and possibilities, our advances and retreats. Behaviors that bring the possibility of reflection on science, and technosciences, that we produce and that produce us, all relationships that reflect the way we see, reflect and make education at all levels. The idea of Mental Diasporas and Diasporic Minds, seeks to synthesize this complex movement, which enhances the possibility of us being at the same time in different spaces and times, which disengages us from physical, local and social limitations, which reaffirms our complex physical and non-physical, mental and cerebral, spiritual, contradictory and consensual, collective and individual identity.

A Tese constitui uma reflexão sobre emergentes comportamentos coletivos e individuais associados às TICs – Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação - e que a partir de abordagem de pesquisa baseada na Perspectiva Eco-Sistêmica (construtivista, interacionista, sociocultural, afetiva e transcendente), procura reproduzir um caminho de referencias e reflexões teóricas e pessoais, individuais e coletivas. Pode-se considerar como ponto de partida desta Tese, a visualização de comportamentos individuais e coletivos relacionados às TICs associados a uma crescente necessidade de expressão e compartilhamento. Embora a Tese não esteja limitada ao aspecto musical, a reflexão que resultou neste trabalho, teve como principio a observação de uma intensa e crescente atividade musical, que não se limitavam apenas a trocas e escuta de arquivos, mas também a comportamentos protagonistas, criativos, não hierárquicos, relacionados à intervenção sobre os arquivos, composições coletivas, manipulação de códigos abertos e comunidades open code, e que são investigados pela linha de pesquisa em Música Ubíqua, que constitui uma das referências da Tese.Todos esses comportamentos, de forma geral, associados aos jovens, mas cada vez mais generalizados na sociedade e ampliados a todas as áreas. Comportamentos tribais segundo Maffesoli, ligados a uma visão cíclica que manifesta a necessidade humana de expressão de seus anseios, que são caracterizados por um estar junto, um presenteísmo, e um reenraizamento como necessidades profundas humanas, em resposta a uma sociedade estagnada pela racionalidade excessiva. Comportamentos que frisam, segundo Heidegger, o aspecto relacional do ser-aí como essencialmente ser-com-o-outro, e do jogo como parte da existência e dessa relação. Jogo, que por sua vez, se associa diretamente às nossas formas de relação com às TICs. Comportamentos emergentes que, para Johnson, estão ligados a padrões observáveis em diversos sistemas na natureza e na sociedade. Todos esses aspectos são relacionados à visão complexa de Morin sobre homo, em todas suas faces de manifestação no mundo: sapiens,faber,demens, ludens,mythologicus, que por sua vez impregnam nossas próprias relações com o mundo que construímos, e com a tecnologia que retroage sobre o mundo e sobre nós. Comportamentos que trazem potencialmente consigo um profundo questionamento do que somos, de nossos determinismos e possibilidades, de nossas constituições física, cerebral, mental, espiritual. De nossos limites e possibilidades. De nossos avanços e recuos. Trazem a possibilidade de reflexão sobre a ciência, e as tecnociências, que produzimos e que nos produz. Todas relações que refletem na forma como vemos, refletimos e fazemos educação em todos os níveis. A ideia das Diásporas mentais e das Mentes diaspóricas, procura sintetizar este movimento complexo, que nos potencializa a possibilidade de ser ao mesmo tempo, em vários espaços, tempos, que nos desimpede de limitações físicas, locais, sociais, que reafirma nossa identidade complexa, física e não-física, cerebral e mental, espiritual, contraditória e consensual, coletiva e individual. / The thesis is a reflection on emerging collective behavior and individual associated with ICT - Information and Communication Technologies -, and that from a research approach based on the Eco-Systemic Perspective (constructivist, interactionist, socio-cultural, emotional and transcendent), seeks to reproduce a path of references and theoretical personal, individual and collective reflections. The visualization of individual and collective behaviors related to ICTs associated with a growing need for expression and sharing may be considered as the starting point of this thesis. Although the thesis is not limited to the musical aspect, the reflection that resulted from this work had as a principal an intense and growing musical activity observation , which was not limited to file listening and exchanges, but also to the observation of protagonist, creative, not hierarchical behavior , related to the intervention on archives, collective composition, manipulation of open codes and open code communities, which are investigated by the line of research on Ubiquitous Music, which is one of the Thesis´ references. All these behaviors are generally associated with youth, but also are increasingly widespread in society and extended to all areas. Tribal behaviors according to Maffesoli, linked to a cyclical view that expresses the human need for their desires´ expression, which are characterized by a being together, a presenteeism, and a rerooting as a deep human need, in response to a stagnant society by an excessive rationality. Behaviors that, according to Heidegger, emphasize the relational aspect of being-there as essentially as being-with-the-other, and the game as part of the existence and this relationship. A game, which in his turn is directly associated to our way of relating to ICTs. Emergent behaviors that for Johnson are linked to the observable patterns in many systems in nature and in society. All these aspects are related to the complex view of Morin on homo in all its facets of manifestation in the world: sapiens, faber, demens, ludens, mythologicus, which in turn permeate our own relationship with the world we have built, and with the technology that retroacts on the world and on us. Behaviors that potentially bring with them a deep questioning of what we are, our possibilities and determinism, of our physical, brain, mental and spiritual constitution, of our limits and possibilities, our advances and retreats. Behaviors that bring the possibility of reflection on science, and technosciences, that we produce and that produce us, all relationships that reflect the way we see, reflect and make education at all levels. The idea of Mental Diasporas and Diasporic Minds, seeks to synthesize this complex movement, which enhances the possibility of us being at the same time in different spaces and times, which disengages us from physical, local and social limitations, which reaffirms our complex physical and non-physical, mental and cerebral, spiritual, contradictory and consensual, collective and individual identity.

Kriminologisk forskning har sedan länge fokuserat på brottslighet och antisocialt beteende. Däremot har en mindre grupp individer genomgående uppgett att de aldrig ägnat sig åt antisocialt beteende och avstår således från brottslighet. Forskning inom detta område har varit jämförelsevis begränsad, men det har föreslagits att individens avhållande bygger på ett uteslutande från kamratgrupper som ett resultat av dennes oönskade egenskaper (t.ex. stark moraluppfattning). Andra menar istället att det är den starka moralen i sig som avhåller personer från att begå brott, vilket är en hypotes som testas i denna studie. Det görs genom att jämföra personer som uppger att de aldrig har begått brott, med personer som endast gjort det vid enstaka tillfällen. Detta i ljuset av variablerna moral, umgänge med brottsliga kamrater och tid som spenderas med vänner i ostrukturerade miljöer. Vidare undersöks eventuella könsskillnader. Med utgångspunkt i data från det longitudinella projektet Malmö Individual and Neighbourhood Developmental Study (MINDS) har logistiska regressioner använts för att undersöka direkta och medierande effekter. Resultaten visar att hög moral predicerar ett avhållande från brott utan en medierande effekt av brottsliga kamrater. Umgänge med brottsliga kamrater predicerar istället brottslighet hos ungdomarna, medan spenderad tid i ostrukturerade miljöer varken predicerar avhållande eller brottslighet. Könsskillnader som fanns indikerar på starkare moral hos kvinnor och att effekten av densamma hos män är beroende av umgänge. Moral bör därför inte ses som en uteslutande egenskap utan snarare som en viktig brottshämmande faktor. / The scientific focus of criminological research has since long been on criminal and antisocial behaviours. However, a group of individuals reporting that they have never engaged in delinquent behaviour (delinquency abstainers) have consistently been identified and until only recently not rendered much scientific interest. It has by some been proposed that delinquency abstention is a result of individuals being excluded from peer groups due to undesired characteristics (e.g. high sense of moral beliefs), although this notion is contested. Morality has by others instead been perceived as having a direct effect on abstention, which is the hypothesis tested in this study. It does so by comparing delinquency abstainers to low-frequency non-abstainers with regards to moral belief, delinquent peer association, and time spent unsupervised with peers, and furthermore examines the effects across gender. Logistic regressions were run to examine direct and mediating effects using data from the longitudinal project Malmö Individual and Neighbourhood Developmental Study (MINDS). Results indicate that strong moral beliefs have a direct effect on abstention and are not mediated by delinquent peer association. Associating with delinquent peers did in turn predict non-abstention but spending time unsupervised with peers did neither predict abstention nor delinquency. Some gender differences found points towards stronger morality amongst females and that the effect of morality for males depends on peer association. Morality should therefore not be perceived as an undesirable characteristic which excludes individuals from peer groups but rather an important factor in the inhibition of delinquency.

Why do local populations regard peacekeepers from certain countries as friendly, and from others not? This study delves into the cultural proximity and cultural awareness of peacekeepers, suggesting it as one factor that influences public perceptions on the peacekeepers and the mission as a whole. I argue that a closer cultural proximity of peacekeepers to the mission country correlates positively with a more favorable public perception on the mission. The working mechanism behind the relationship is based on the theory of winning hearts and minds. Aiming for empirical validation, this hypothesis undergoes examination by using a structured focused comparison between the Malian cities of Gao and Timbuktu. In addition, I complement the study with the method of process tracing, using own data collected through expert interviews with 10 individuals who gained field experience in MINUSMA. The results of the structured focused comparison yield unexpected results: The evidence does not align with the hypothesis due to a lack of variation in the peacekeepers‘ cultural proximity between the cases. However, the tracing of the causal mechanism proves invaluable. It finds support for certain parts of the theorized mechanism while inviting for further exploration on additional intervening factors that reshape or complement the causal chain.

This dissertation constructively explores the implications for natural theology of (especially) John McDowell’s anti-Cartesian philosophy of mind and perception. Traditionally, an important element within natural theology is the idea that nature testifies to its creator, thereby making knowledge of a creator available to humans. In traditional accounts, the relevant knowledge is usually conceived as inferential. From observations of “the things that have been made” (Rom 1: 20), we may reason our way to the existence of a creator. The dissertation presents an alternative construal of creation’s testimony. It argues that biological nature may have expressive properties of a similar kind as human behaviour and art seem to have. We may be able to perceive nature as creation, i.e., as expressive of the mind of a creator. The knowledge of a creator acquired from nature is, according to this construal, perceptual rather than inferential. The viability of the dissertation’s suggestion depends, however, on the rejection of certain common and fundamental assumptions about the nature of mind and perception – assumptions that may rightly be called “Cartesian.” In chapters 1-3, a radically anti-Cartesian outlook on mind and perception, drawn mainly from McDowell’s work, is presented. The outlook (labelled “open-mindedness”) conceives the mind as a system of essentially world-involving capacities. One such capacity is perception, which is portrayed as (when all goes well) a direct, cognitive openness to the world. Chapter 4 argues that open-mindedness makes an attractive construal of our knowledge of “other minds” available. Human behaviour may, as McDowell suggests, be construed as having expressive properties, i.e., perceivable properties the instantiation of which logically entails the instantiation of certain mental properties. The main problem confronting this idea is the so-called “argument from pretence” – a version of the more general “argument from illusion.” The fact that behaviour that is the result of pretence can be indistinguishable, for an observer, from behaviour that is genuinely expressive of the mental property pain, can seem to entail that it is impossible to perceive that somebody else is in pain. It is argued that accepting the outlook of open-mindedness and the view of perception it includes dissolves this problem and makes it possible to construe (some of) our knowledge of the mental states of other people as perceptual rather than inferential knowledge. Chapter 5 argues that the same philosophical moves that dissolve the “problem of other minds” also can be used to overcome the problems confronting the (from a Christian perspective) attractive idea that nature may be perceptibly expressive of the mind of a creator. It is argued that the idea that other phenomena than human behaviour can be genuinely expressive of mind is not at all counter-intuitive. Artworks have, for instance, (according to a common view) expressive properties that make something of the mental life of the artist available to others. Furthermore, many people seem to have experiences in which natural structures appear to them as intentionally created. Even atheists report that biological organisms strike them as “designed.” Experiences in which natural phenomena appear to the subject as intentionally created or “designed” are candidates for being veridical perceptions of expressive properties in nature. It is argued that the suggested construal of biological nature as expressive of the mind of a creator is completely compatible with the fact that biological species have evolved by natural selection. Chapter 6 briefly reflects on the consequences of the dissertation’s argument for Christian theology.