Philosophy Commons^™

Safety And Academic Outcomes Of College Campus-Based Advocacy Services, Rachel J. Voth Schrag, Elizabeth Baumler, Dixie Hairston, Cynthia Jones, Leila Wood

Philosophy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Intimate partner violence (IPV), sexual assault, and stalking are consequential public health and safety issues with wide reaching impacts on emerging adults, including those on college campuses in the United States. In response to high rates of violence among college student populations, universities are developing campus-based advocacy (CBA) programs, which aim to support survivors of interpersonal violence through supportive connections, resource acquisition, and safety planning. However, little data exists related to their impact on key student-survivor outcomes. Thus, this study aims to understand (a) the approach CBA programs use to address safety and academic concerns of student-survivors, and (b) the …

Clausewitzian Theory Of War In The Age Of Cognitive Warfare, Amber Brittain-Hale

Education Division Scholarship

We can reconceptualise warfare by contrasting Clausewitz with the modern practice of cognitive warfare, as evidenced by Ukraine’s defence methodologies. The strategic orchestration of ‘infopolitik’ and the sophisticated use of social media can shape narratives and public perception. This article revisits Clausewitz’s tenet of war as a political instrument and juxtaposes it with contemporary conflict’s multidimensional tactics. By scrutinising Ukraine’s digital and psychological warfare tactics, one may question the applicability of Clausewitz’s framework, seeking to understand if these novel dimensions of warfare compel a redefinition or an expansion of his thesis to navigate the complexities of contemporary geopolitical confrontations.

Making Decisions "In The Dark": Learning Through Uncertainty In Clinical Practice During Covid-19, Urvashi Vaid, Henriette Lundgren, Karen E. Watkins, Deborah Ziring, Grace A. Alcid, Victoria J. Marsick, Dimitrios Papanagnou

Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Faculty Papers

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to explore how decision making and informal and incidental learning (IIL) emerged in the clinical learning environment (CLE) during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The authors' specific interest was to better understand the IIL that took place among frontline physicians who had to navigate a CLE replete with uncertainty and complexity with the future goal of creating experiences for medical students that would simulate IIL and use uncertainty as a catalyst for learning.

METHOD: Using a modified constructivist, grounded theory approach, we describe physicians' IIL while working during times of heightened uncertainty. …

Volume 14, Ireland Seagle, Dalton C. Whitby, Cassandra Poole, Rachel Cannon, Heidi Parker-Combes, Devon G. Shifflett, Antonio Harvey

Incite: The Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: Dr. Amorette Barber
• From the Editor: Dr. Larissa "Kat" Tracy
• From the Designers: Rachel English, Rachel Hanson
• Hungry Like the Wolf: The Wolf as Metaphor in Paramount Network’s Yellowstone: Ireland Seagle
• “Floating Cities”: Illustrating the Commercial and Conservation Conflict of Alaskan Cruise Ship Tourism: Dalton C. Whitby
• What Can You Do When Your Genes are the Enemy? Current Applications of Gene Manipulation and the Associated Ethical Considerations: Cassandra Poole
• La doble cara: un tema romántico en las obras de Larra y Hawthorne: Rachel Cannon
• Resolving a Conflict: How to …

Is Biological Death Final? Recomputing The Drake-S Equation For Postmortem Survival Of Consciousness, Adam J. Rock, James Houran, Patrizio E. Tressoldi, Brian Laythe

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

This participatory team science project extended Laythe and Houran’s (2022) prior application of a famous probabilistic argument known as the ‘Drake equation’ to the question of postmortem survival. Specifically, we evaluated effect sizes from peer-reviewed, empirical studies to determine the maximum average percentage effect that ostensibly supports (i.e., "anomalous effects") or refutes (i.e., "known confounds") the survival hypothesis. But unlike the earlier application, this research included a study-specific estimate of the hypothesized variable of ‘living agent psi’ via a new meta-analysis of empirical studies (N = 17) with exceptional subjects vs participants from the general population. Our updated analysis found …

Murder On The Vr Express: Studying The Impact Of Thought Experiments At A Distance In Virtual Reality, Andrew Kissel, Krzysztof J. Rechowicz, John B. Shull

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Hypothetical thought experiments allow researchers to gain insights into widespread moral intuitions and provide opportunities for individuals to explore their moral commitments. Previous thought experiment studies in virtual reality (VR) required participants to come to an on-site laboratory, which possibly restricted the study population, introduced an observer effect, and made internal reflection on the participants’ part more difficult. These shortcomings are particularly crucial today, as results from such studies are increasingly impacting the development of artificial intelligence systems, self-driving cars, and other technologies. This paper explores the viability of deploying thought experiments in commercially available in-home VR headsets. We conducted …

Two Dimensions Of A Bodhisattva, Douglas Duckworth

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

This paper presents two dimensions of a bodhisattva, the ideal of Maha- ya- na Buddhism. One dimension involves contemplative practices that disclose a pure nature that is always already present; this reality is unveiled after the obscurations that cloud it are removed. I refer to this as a “top-down” approach because it is based on qualities of awakening that are already there, yet lie beyond an ordinary being’s comprehension. The second dimension, which I refer to as a “bottom-up” approach, involves directed training and discipline. Unlike the top-down approach, this is not about “going with the flow” or simply letting …

Authentic Mindfulness Within Mindfulness-Based Interventions: A Qualitative Study Of Participants' Experiences, Supakyada Sapthiang, Edo Shonin, Paul Barrows, William Van Gordon

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

There are concerns that participants of some modern mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are receiving a superficial form of mindfulness training. However, empirical investigation of this issue according to participants’ first-hand experiences has been limited. Thus, this qualitative study aimed to capture the first-hand perspectives relating to authentic mindfulness of participants who had recently attended an MBI in the UK. Ten adults completed a recorded, online semistructured interview. Based on a thematic analysis, the following four master themes were identified: (a) authentic mindfulness as a construct, (b) positive aspects of the training, (c) something missing, and (d) recommendations for authenticity. Although all …

Mindfulness Traps And The Entanglement Of Self: An Inquiry Into The Regime Of Mind, Richard Dixey, Ronald E. Purser

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Mindfulness meditation can provide salutary therapeutic benefits, as well as lead advanced practitioners to states of calm and equanimity. In this paper, we argue that such forms of meditation may subtly entrap practitioners in circular, self-reflexive feedback loops. Because these meditation traps fail to clearly discern the operations of mind, they offer a temporary oasis of peace within an unaltered dualistic realm of mind that leaves the root delusion of self-identity intact. Drawing upon Tarthang Tulku’s seminal book Revelations of Mind, we present what he refers to as the “regime of mind,” the processes of cognition, identification and re-cognition in …

Cognitive Illusion, Lucid Dreaming, And The Psychology Of Metaphor In Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen Contemplative Practices, Michael R. Sheehy

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

A classic set of eight similes of illusion (sgyu ma’i dpe brgyad) are employed recurrently throughout Indian and Tibetan Buddhist literature to illustrate the operations of cognition, its correlative perceptions, and experiences that emerge. To illustrate a Buddhist psychology of metaphor, the fourteenth century Tibetan scholar and synthesizer of the Dzogchen (rdzogs chen) or Great Perfection system, Longchen Rabjam Drimé Ödzer (1308-1363), composed his poetic text, Being at Ease with Illusion. This work on illusion is the third volume in Longchenpa’s Trilogy of Being at Ease (Ngal gso skor gsum) in which he presents a series of Dzogchen instructions on …

Theorizing, Bounded Rationality, And Expertise: Cognitive Sociology And The Quasi-Realism Of Problem-Solving As A Course Of Activity, Michael W. Raphael

Publications and Research

The question facing sociology is whether it is a field or a discipline. If it is a field, then there is no need for theorizing. However, if sociology is a discipline, then problem-solving cannot be disentangled from theorizing without a loss of intelligibility – the inability to explain the social as the concept of the discipline. Through the quasi-realism of problem-solving as a course of activity, this chapter presents cognitive sociology as a paradigm appropriate to the concept of the social understood as an ongoing course of activity. In doing so, it is shown how bounded rationality and expertise play …

Transformative, Noetic, And Transpersonal Experiences During Personal Development Workshops, Helané Wahbeh, Cassandra Vieten, Garret Young, Agnes Cartry-Jacobsen, Dean Radin, Arnaud Delorme

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

The global personal development market was valued at $38.28 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow an additional 5% from 2020 to 2027. Many of these workshops promise to be transformational. This secondary analysis study examined transformative, transpersonal, and noetic aspects of personal development workshops. We found that 74% of post-survey records endorsed that participants experienced a moment of clarity or profound insight during their workshop. In addition, 66% endorsed that participants had experienced at least one noetic experience, and 84% endorsed at least one transpersonal experience. These analyses provide preliminary evidence for the transformational potential of personal development …

The Politics Of The Self: Psychedelic Assemblages, Psilocybin, And Subjectivity In The Anthropocene, Joshua Falcon

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how psychedelic substances become drawn into particular sociohistorical and political arrangements, and how psychedelic experiences with psilocybin ‘magic mushrooms’ are used as tools of subjectivation. Guided by literatures in philosophy, critical theory, and the social sciences that focus on subjectivity, assemblage theory, and critical posthumanism, I argue that psychedelics are drawn into variegated assemblages, each of which conceptualizes the nature of psychedelics in highly specific ways that reflect implicit conceptions of the world and the self. In developing the concept of psychedelic assemblages, this research provides a window onto the politics of the self in the Anthropocene. …

A Framework For Understanding How People Can Draw Different Conclusions Based On The Same Information, Evan Schapiro

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

At least partially fueled by misinformation, political polarization is growing in the United States, leading to a breakdown of confidence in our traditional academic and political institutions. A popular belief is that a solution is to train people to think more rationally by eliminating the cognitive biases embedded in their subconscious thought patterns. This paper identifies the influences on my thinking and the framework used to look at these issues from a different perspective through methodological believing and the application of models of learning and conversation. The paper also points out that the methods of scientific inquiry often assume that …

The Value Of Education: School Policy Decisions During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Elika W. Somani

Individually Designed Interdepartmental Major Honors Project

During the COVID-19 pandemic, lacking national U.S. policies, wide variation and conflict over chosen public school policy decisions emerged. What factors and guidelines informed the decision-making process in K-12 public schools during the COVID-19 pandemic and who were the key stakeholders? This study examines three school district types – a large city, medium city, and small-town – across Minnesota as case studies to unpack how policy decisions were made during the pandemic. Stakeholder interviews uncovered that the school decision-making process was a) connected to a district's political opinions, b) made by the superintendent and school board, c) primarily influenced by …

Volume 13, Payton Davenport, Audrey Lemons, Jacob Shope, Haley Smith, Cassandra Poole, Rachel Cannon, Rachel Boch, Suzanne Stetson

Incite: The Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Introduction Dr. Roger A. Byrne, Dean

From the Editor Dr. Larissa “Kat” Tracy

From the Designers Rachel English, Rachel Hanson

The Effect of Compliment Type on the Estimated Value of the Compliment by Payton Davenport, Audrey Lemons, and Jacob Shope

The Imperial Japanese Military: A New Identity in the Twentieth Century, 1853–1922 by Haley Smith

Longwood University’s campus: Human-cultivated Soil has Higher Microbial Diversity than Soil Collected from Wild Sites by Cassandra Poole

Reminiscent Modernism: Poetry Magazine’s Modernist Nostalgia for the Past by Rachel Cannon

Challenges Faced by Healthcare Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Preliminary Study of Age and …

The Illusion Of Agency In Human–Computer Interaction, Michael Madary

College of the Pacific Faculty Articles

This article makes the case that our digital devices create illusions of agency. There are times when users feel as if they are in control when in fact they are merely responding to stimuli on the screen in predictable ways. After the introduction, the second section of the article offers examples of illusions of agency that do not involve human–computer interaction in order to show that such illusions are possible and not terribly uncommon. The third and fourth sections of the article cover relevant work from empirical psychology, including the cues that are known to generate the sense of agency. …

Improving Student Outcomes In Introductory Formal Logic, Bryce Rosenwald

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Across a variety of educational settings, undergraduate introductory courses in formal logic tend to have high failure rates. In this paper, I explore practical, evidence-based steps that logic instructors can take to improve student outcomes. The topics covered are small class sizes, problem-based learning, clicker questions, group activities, and spaced practice. The effect of small class size is moderated by many variables, including each instructor’s unique characteristics and the pedagogical techniques used in large vs. small classrooms. Problem-based learning and clicker questions are determined to be excellent techniques for introducing content and furthering understanding of content, respectively. Small groups can …

Accountability And Autonomy, Motivation, And Psychiatric Treatment, John R. Peteet, Charlotte Vanoyen-Witvliet, C. Stephen Evans

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Accountability As A Key Virtue In Mental Health And Human Flourishing, John R. Peteet, Charlotte Vanoyen-Witvliet, C. Stephen Evans

Faculty Publications

We propose that accountability plays an implicit, important, and relatively unexamined role in psychiatry. People generally think of accountability as a relation in which one party is held accountable by another. In this paper, we examine accountability as a virtue, drawing on philosophy, psychiatry, and psychology to examine what it means to welcome being accountable in an excellent way that promotes flourishing. When people manifest accountability as a virtue, they are both responsive to others they owe a response, and they are responsible for their attitudes and actions in light of these relationships. Psychiatric treatment often aims to correct disordered …

Why Aim Law Toward Human Survival, John William Draper

Librarian Scholarship at Penn Law

Our legal system is contributing to humanity’s demise by failing to take account of our species’ situation. For example, in some cases law works against life and supports interests such as liberty or profit maximization.

If we do not act, science tells us that humanity bears a significant (and growing) risk of catastrophic failure. The significant risk inherent in the status quo is unacceptable and requires a response. We must act. It is getting hotter. When we decide to act, we need to make the right choice.

There is no better choice. You and all your relatives have rights. The …

Locating The Embodied Sense Of Self And Examining Its Relationship With Psychological Well-Being, Adam Hanley, Natalie Lecy, Robert Hanley

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Westerners tend to localize their sense of self in the head, and, to a lesser degree, in the chest. However, single-point, localization studies of the self omit direct exploration of the size and shape of the embodied self. This study explored a) beliefs about the location and spatial distribution of the embodied sense of self, and b) whether individual differences in how the embodied self was represented were associated with psychological and subjective well-being. Results from a sample of 206 American adults confirm extant reports, indicating that the embodied sense of self is most often located in the head and …

The Mushroom, The Frog, And The Rainbow Of Desire: A Participatory-Psychedelic Spiritual Emergence, Gregg Lahood

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

This article will explore a spiritual emergency through a myth or fairy tale that emerged at the same time I had a frightening brush with death. Two days before the accident I had ingested psilocybin mushrooms. Michael Washburn, among other transpersonal theorists, will be used to interpret, amplify and re-frame this potential ‘psychotic episode’ with ‘borderline features’ into something more, perhaps, on the threshold of a shamanic initiation in a liminal state. The mythic sequence in my story anticipates the death-rebirth (perinatal pattern) and evolution of consciousness in the LSD research of Stanislav Grof; an evolution given epic participatory elucidation …

Relational Inquiry: Seven-Years Practicing Seven Relationships, Gregg Lahood

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Greetings from Byron Bay—what follows is a postcard version of a seven-year cycle of relational inquiry retrospectively nicknamed The Rainbow of Desire. I outline our practices, explore five basic fields in our approach to new paradigm research, and present an updated version of my seven relationships model as a heuristic for understanding and participating in relational inquiry. As a contemporary spiritual expression, with roots in the Greek-Socratic tradition of research, and informed by Gestalt practice (not psychotherapy), this account may also be of value for persons interested in further Gestalt-transpersonal inquiry, research, and learning.

Meditation-Induced After Death Communication: A Contemporary Modality For Grief Therapy, Neda Wassie

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Meditation-induced after death communication (MI-ADC) was introduced as a potential modality for grief therapy. Traditional and contemporary approaches were compared in order to evaluate effective paradigms and theories of bereavement. The Continuing Bonds theory of attachment emerged as an adaptive framework for grief therapy, especially with attention to meaning-making and the strength of continued bonds. Considerations were implemented from research in psychomanteum, mediumship, and induced after death communication. Specifically, visual stimuli and timing of after death communications were emphasized. The discussion was encouraging for the conceptualization of MI-ADC as an effective construct and as an inquiry for empirical research.

Using Legos® In Research Facilitation: An Advanced Scripted Research Method, Samuel W. Root

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Transpersonal research methods can help individuals access useful information and material that typically reside out of conscious awareness. The playful activity of LEGO® block-building can be adapted for research purposes and used to overcome research impasses, for example. This paper presents a novel transpersonal LEGO® building process for facilitation in each of the four major phases of research. Readers are provided with a 6-step script that takes between 30 minutes and 1 hour to complete. Steps include: Prepare to Exercise; Set Intentions; Build While Intending Solution; Appreciate/Take In; Project and Actively Imagine; and Reflect and Ease Out. Future studies could …

Intimations Of A Spiritual New Age. V. Socio-Cultural Bases Of A Globalizing Neo-Shamanism And Its Relation To Climate Crisis: Possibilities, Inevitabilities, Barriers, Harry T. Hunt

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Extending this series of papers on a futural spirituality, and considering the numinous as an inherent human capacity for an awe that confers a sense of all-inclusive meaning, communality, and humility, the question arises whether, in the face of a secularization of traditional world religions, globalization of a techno/capitalist economy of perpetual commodification of planet and person, and a widening sense of loss of meaning and higher purpose, some collective re-newal of the sense of the sacred might be possible – or not. While Jung, Toynbee, and Sorokin regarded such a movement as inevitable, bringing forward to the degree possible …

Effects Of Brief Daily Kundalini Yoga Meditation On Self-Esteem, Mood And Emotional Self-Efficacy: A Randomized Comparison Study, Sonia Romero Martinez

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

This randomized comparison study measured the impact of brief daily use of two types of kundalini yoga meditation from the Yogi Bhajan lineage on self-esteem, regulatory emotional self-efficacy, and positive and negative affect in a non-clinical sample of 46 Spanish-speaking adults residing in Spain. Results of the two meditation types—Kirtan Kriya and Internal Conflict Resolution—are compared. Results showed that both types of meditation had positive impacts on all study variables, though the degree of change and effect size depended on the type of meditation used. Results point to these relevant forms of brief daily meditation as simple and inexpensive tools …

There's A Duwende On My Shelf: The Parapsychological Studies Of Fr. Jaime C. Bulatao, Sj, Carl Lorenz Cervantes

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

In the Filipino transpersonal worldview, the mind is not contained within the brain, and is often projected onto the world as “spirits”. Studying these cultural metaphors may allow for a deeper understanding of the Filipino psyche. Fr. Jaime C. Bulatao, SJ, one of the founders of the Psychological Association of the Philippines, studied the projections of the Filipino psyche as they manifested in paranormal phenomena. Bulatao provides the metaphor of eggs frying in a pan as a framework to understand this: the egg whites fuse despite the yolks being far apart. It is in the dissolution of boundaries that transpersonal …

Exceptional Human Experiences Among Pilgrims On The Camino De Santiago: A Study Of Self-Reported Experiences And Transformative Aftereffects, Miran Lavric, Snezana Brumec, Andrej Naterer

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

The Camino de Santiago pilgrimage is an extraordinary endeavour that tends to trigger exceptional human experiences. Following our previous investigation of this topic, we conducted an online survey of 501 pilgrims in order to assess the frequency of different exceptional experiences (EEs) on the pilgrimage and their transformative aftereffects (TAs) in everyday life afterwards. More than 70% of the respondents reported improvement in terms of self-confidence, personal relationships and letting go of emotional “baggage”. The results show strong correlations between the observed EEs and the (consequent) TAs. We contend that walking the Camino de Santiago often produces exceptional experiences that …