Natural Contingencies Research Articles

Концепция контингентности и ее значение в философии Эмиля Бутру

The article examines the concept of contingency of nature and scientific laws, put for­ward and set forth in a number of works by the French spiritualist philosopher Emile Boutroux (1845–1921). The principle of contingency became for him an important tool in solving complex interrelated problems: 1) to substantiate spiritualism, including its key idea of ​​freedom, based on the scientific knowledge of the era in which issues of phi­losophical epistemology were becoming increasingly important; 2) thereby contribute to the revival of metaphysics, which was threatened with marginalization due to the pro­motion of the ideas of positivism and scientism. Considering the hierarchy of genera, or levels of being, as well as the laws corresponding to them, Boutroux sought to prove that the world is not dominated by rigid necessity, but by contingency. Accordingly, in scientific laws there is a certain amount of convention, which increases as one moves from the lower stages of being, those closest to matter, where determinism manifests it­self most strongly, to the highest levels, where the main role is played by the spiritual principle with its inherent freedom. It is this freedom, which cannot be comprehended in experience, that is expressed in contingency, which is a characteristic feature of being. Thus, the principle of contingency appears in Boutroux’s concept as the main principle of knowledge and explanation in philosophy, which allows metaphysics to return its meaning, denied by positivism, and to substantiate human freedom.

Addressing the rise of inequalities: How relevant is Rawls's critique of welfare state capitalism?

Addressing the rise of inequalities: How relevant is Rawls's critique of welfare state capitalism?

Effects of a Peer-Mediated Joint Attention Intervention in an Inclusive Preschool Setting

Joint attention, or shared attention to an object or event, is a pivotal skill for the development of social interactions and social communication. Joint attention typically develops in natural contexts within the first year of life. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and related developmental disabilities often experience difficulty developing joint attention. Clinical interventions to increase joint attention exist. However, there are limited studies investigating methods to incorporate joint attention interventions in inclusive preschool classrooms with peers as social partners. For young children in preschool settings, peer-mediated social skills interventions reflect natural contingencies and may promote generalization. In this study, we employed a single-case multiple baseline across child–peer dyads design to evaluate the effects of a peer-mediated joint attention intervention for children with or at risk for ASD on response to joint attention (RJA) from peer bids and initiations of joint attention (IJA) from target children with ASD. The intervention included direct instruction with a social narrative to teach three peers to initiate bids for joint attention to measure target children’s responses. Target children later received the same direct instruction to increase IJA to same-age-peers. Results indicate increased target child RJA and IJA to peers. Limitations and implications for research and practice are discussed.

'A impotência da natureza': necessidade e contingência lógica, natural e espiritual

In this paper I will address the Hegelian approach to the so-called modal categories in the Science of Logic bearing in mind the centrality of the natural and spiritual status of contingency vis-à-vis the logical. I will argue, first, that the absolute necessity presented in the Logic must be read in the light of a clash between the ancient and modern conceptions of necessity and, therefore, in view of its spiritual status. The identity between contingency and absolute necessity becomes the fundamental aspect of the speculative and modern understanding of modalities. Second, I will show in what sense contingency is constitutive not only of the logical category of necessity, but that it has its own terrain in nature and spirit as well. Through the notion of the impotence of nature, Hegel emphasizes that the forms of empirical nature are not entirely reducible to the unity of the concept, and that contingency therefore has a constitutive role in the determination of natural objects themselves. Third, however, I will argue that this natural contingency irreducible to the concept does not have an irrational status in the form of a radical chance as an external limit to logic, but that the very facticity of nature is already found in the logical figures of contingency.

Choice history effects in mice and humans improve reward harvesting efficiency.

Choice history effects describe how future choices depend on the history of past choices. In experimental tasks this is typically framed as a bias because it often diminishes the experienced reward rates. However, in natural habitats, choices made in the past constrain choices that can be made in the future. For foraging animals, the probability of earning a reward in a given patch depends on the degree to which the animals have exploited the patch in the past. One problem with many experimental tasks that show choice history effects is that such tasks artificially decouple choice history from its consequences on reward availability over time. To circumvent this, we use a variable interval (VI) reward schedule that reinstates a more natural contingency between past choices and future reward availability. By examining the behavior of optimal agents in the VI task we discover that choice history effects observed in animals serve to maximize reward harvesting efficiency. We further distil the function of choice history effects by manipulating first- and second-order statistics of the environment. We find that choice history effects primarily reflect the growth rate of the reward probability of the unchosen option, whereas reward history effects primarily reflect environmental volatility. Based on observed choice history effects in animals, we develop a reinforcement learning model that explicitly incorporates choice history over multiple time scales into the decision process, and we assess its predictive adequacy in accounting for the associated behavior. We show that this new variant, known as the double trace model, has a higher performance in predicting choice data, and shows near optimal reward harvesting efficiency in simulated environments. These results suggests that choice history effects may be adaptive for natural contingencies between consumption and reward availability. This concept lends credence to a normative account of choice history effects that extends beyond its description as a bias.

An Investigation of the Correspondence between Results of Contingency Space Analysis and Intervention Effects for Addressing Interfering Behavior of Middle-School Youth

The literature provides various tools for identifying successful interventions for interfering behavior of individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities, yet less literature is available pertaining to students who do not have cognitive impairments. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the correspondence between the results of contingency space analyses (CSA) and interventions for four middle-school boys who engaged in interfering behavior. Researchers directly observed natural interactions between each student, his teacher, and peers during three baseline sessions. The students' teacher then implemented three intervention conditions. Using direct observation data, researchers conducted a CSA of the baseline data and determined the natural contingencies between student behavior and social consequences. The results of the CSAs were then compared to the effects of the intervention conditions. For three students, results of the CSA were consistent with results of the intervention analysis. Results provide preliminary support for the CSA as a tool for identifying hypothesis-based interventions.

Reviews

Summary This book deals with one of the most important focus points of Pannenberg’s theology, the relationship between the biblical faith in God as creator and sustainer of the world, and the modern scientific and philosophical understanding of the world. The eleven articles expand and discuss Pannenberg’s insistence on a deep-rooted connection between the biblical view of reality as something evolving over time and the latest scientific theories. This is done through discussions of subjects like space, time, contingency vs. laws of nature, field theory and evolution. The articles also show how much scientific insights inform Pannenberg’s theology.

Homework Instructions and Compliance Assessing in the Therapeutic Process: An Analysis of Therapists’ Verbal Behavior

Instructions are a common resource used by behavioral therapists to assign therapeutic homework. However, understanding how clients learn with instructions is better known in laboratory research than in clinical research. The present study aims to explore changes in the way of instructing and reviewing the client’s compliance throughout the therapeutic process. We analyzed the therapist’s verbal behavior during 211 recorded sessions corresponding to 19 cases treated by 11 behavioral therapists (53% male and 47% female). The sessions were divided into four stages according to the timing of the intervention and coded by using a previously validated coding system (SYST-INTER-INSTR). Results show that instructions become less specific towards the last stage of the intervention. However, therapists assess task compliance in the same way towards the end of the therapeutic process. The change in specificity suggests that the client’s behavior changes from being controlled by instructions to being controlled by natural contingencies. However, to make sure the clinical change remains; therapists assess and reinforce the client’s compliance until the end of the intervention. Although clinical implications of the results, some limitations (i.e., not considering the type of task instructed) should be addressed in future studies.

Mejorando una relación terapéutica hostil con la psicoterapia analítica funcional

La Psicoterapia Analitica Funcional (FAP, Kohlenberg & Tsai, 1991) es un poderoso tratamiento en si mismo y tambien una aproximacion integradora con cualquier terapia produciendo unos resultados sinergicos. Enfatiza el uso de la relacion terapeutica para producir el cambio en los clientes, centrandose en las contingencias directas y naturales que ocurren en sesion. Es una terapia contextual que ha demostrado ser util para el tratamiento de personas que presentan problemas de larga duracion, difusos en su definicion, vinculados a las dificultades en las relaciones de intimidad. Este trabajo expone la mejora de una relacion terapeutica hostil a traves de FAP. Se presenta un caso de una joven con discapacidad intelectual leve y con una historia de maltrato sospechado y abandono familiar, que presentaba dificultades en las relaciones de intimidad. Los resultados de esta intervencion indicaron una mejoria en las relaciones terapeuticas que permitieron trabajar con mas facilidad otras areas de la vida de la cliente.

Figures in the Landscape

Across a range of medieval French texts—from the genres of romance, lai, and hagiography—scenes are found involving the discovery and scrutiny of a puzzling, hairy entity that cannot speak for itself, existing outside the confines of human civilization. These figures might turn out to be a beast, a nobleman, a saint, a murderer, or—more unsettlingly—many of these at once. These scenes are susceptible to a reading which calls upon a theoretical model drawn from the works of Bruno Latour and Karen Barad, for whom nature, culture, humanity, animality, the organic, and the inorganic are all different understandings of entanglements of matter and agency, expressed across a range of beings and becomings. From this perspective, these ambiguous creatures are read as figures which represent extremes of humanity and inhumanity, posing questions about that dichotomy and its relation to nature, and revealing the contingency of nature as an artificially constructed category.

The Naivete of Neville’s Religion: A Celebratory Yet Despairing Reading

Abstract A detailed review of the theory of religion presented by Robert Cummings Neville in Religion, the third and concluding volume of his Philosophical Theology, leads into a critical response to Neville’s notions of symbolic engagement of ultimacy and second naivete. The approach is framed by concern for our perilous ecological and human future. It is both philosophical and literary in form, and driven by the haunting role of nothing in Neville’s account of the contingency of ultimate reality(ies). Neville’s theory of religion is distinguished from and far superior to reigning ways of seeing the subject in the fields of confessional theology and religious studies. However, the present response comes to focus with a celebratory yet despairing appreciation of the possibility of second naivete in religion. It aims to show, as much as say, that the normative commendation of ontological faith, which consummates Neville’s theology, may rest in part on personal dispositions that, hard though it is to believe, underplay the despair bred by religious life engaged with persistent nothing, the ultimate contingency of nature and being.

Training behavioral technicians to implement naturalistic behavioral interventions using behavioral skills training

Training behavioral technicians mainly focuses on teaching accurate implementation of structured behavioral intervention programs. Often behavioral technicians are unable to adequately promote their clients' learning in less structured environments, which can limit opportunities for generalization of the clients' skills to the natural environment. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of using behavioral skills training to coach behavioral technicians on the implementation of naturalistic behavioral interventions. Naturalistic behavioral interventions take advantage of naturally occurring situations to teach new skills and practice mastered skills in natural settings, thus promoting generalization across environments and in the presence of natural contingencies. Five behavioral technicians were trained to implement a novel protocol based on play therapy. Specifically, they were coached to engage in well‐defined positive behaviors during their interactions with clients (e.g., labeled praise). All participants reached mastery criteria, maintained skills at follow‐up, and demonstrated generalization of skills with novel clients.

A Proposed Solution of St. Thomas Aquinas’s “Third Way” Through Pros Hen Analogy

St. Thomas’s Third Way to prove the existence of God, “Of Possibility and Necessity” (ST 1, q.2, art. 3, response) is one of the most controverted passages in the entire Thomistic corpus. The central point of dispute is that if there were only possible beings, each at some time would cease to exist and, therefore, at some point in time nothing would exist, and because something cannot come from nothing, in such an eventuality, nothing would exist now—a reductio ad absurdum conclusion. Therefore, at least one necessary being must exist. Generations of critics and defenders have contended over St. Thomas’s proof. This article argues that the principle of pros hen analogy is implicit in the Third Way and that once identified explains the ontological dependency of possible beings, as secondary analogates, on the first necessary being, as primary analogate. Thus, without the necessary being as primary analogate, possible beings simply could not exist. The fact that they do exist is evidence for the existence of the necessary being. St. Thomas makes synthesizes the principle of pros hen analogy, as found in Aristotle’s Metaphysics, with the Neoplatonic principle of participation. Aristotle develops pros hen analogy in contradistinction to univocal and equivocal predication as well as to genus in Metaphysics 4.2, 11.3, 12.3-5. Since Scotus and re-enforced by modern analytic logic, philosophers have almost universally regarded any kind of analogical predication as a sub-category of equivocal predication and, thus, implicitly occlude the possibility of considering pros hen analogy in their readings of the Third Way. Distinction of per se and per accidens infinite regress and of radical and natural contingency are also central to understanding the Third Way. While resolving apparent problems in the Third Way, the article also seeks to rehabilitate the doctrine of pros hen analogy as a basic principle in Thomistic and, indeed, Aristotelian metaphysics.

Challenging Students’ Belief in the ‘Balance of Nature’ Idea

This article reports on the theoretical output of a design research study, which concerns the design of a learning environment (LE) for helping students challenge the ‘balance of nature’-idea and reach an up-to-date understanding about ecosystems’ contingency. Our focus is set on whether it is feasible to articulate an empirically tested theory of teaching/learning about contingency in nature while designing our LE. The study included an exploratory phase (EP) and three research cycles (RC1–3). The participants were first year educational sciences students who collaboratively explored computer models that simulated ecosystems’ response to changes, in order to understand the underlying contingency. In the EP, we defined learning objectives/design criteria that informed the LE’s first version. This was driven by the global/overall question of how ecosystems may function, which was explored through inter-connected local/partial questions with the aid of scaffold questions embedded in worksheets linked to the computer models. Drawing upon the RC1 results, we introduced two-version models for each change that the peer groups had to explore and assigned the first version to half and the second to the other half. These changes made it through RC2-RC3 and account for key features of the study’s theoretical output, the ‘Bifurcated Domino Path Approach’. The RC3 results show that it works effectively, and thus, we suggest that the design of LEs addressing contingency in ecosystem’s response can integrate bifurcated domino paths with several (a) forks, where some peer groups explore one version of the target phenomenon and others an alternative one and (b) meeting points, where they all share their different, contingency-indicating conclusions.

Justice as fairness and bad luck

One major way of arguing for the moral attractiveness of luck egalitarianism is indirect; it consists in showing that the view follows from competing views on distributive justice which one actually endorses. Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen (KLR) claims that luck egalitarianism is indirectly supported in this way by Rawls’s intuitive argument for the difference principle. That argument begins by asserting that the impact of social and natural contingencies on distributive shares is unjust. After clarifying the notion of indirect support, I argue against KLR’s claim. Whether the argument goes on to support luck egalitarianism is a matter of interpretation which can only be decided by looking closer at what Rawls has to say about the difference principle than KLR’s own treatment of the argument allows. In its most plausible reading, the intuitive argument veers away from luck egalitarianism in favor of a non-egalitarian view of the difference principle as a principle of compensating advantage. On this view, inequality due to bad luck is not in any respect unjust when the least advantaged cannot be made better off under alternative arrangements. In conclusion I explain why there are good reasons of fairness to understand the difference principle in this way.

Generalization and maintenance of functional communication training for individuals with developmental disabilities: A systematic and quality review

BackgroundFunctional communication training (FCT) is considered an evidence-based practice for treating problem behavior in individuals with developmental disabilities (e.g. autism, intellectual disabilities, down syndrome, etc.). However, there is little known on how to sustain behavioral change following FCT interventions. This systematic and quality review synthesizes the current literature base evaluating the maintenance and generalization of behavioral effects following FCT. MethodA systematic review identified 37 studies that met the pre-set inclusion criteria. Those studies were summarized in terms of: (a) generalization dimension, (b) generalization assessment design, (c) maintenance assessment design, (d) maintenance and generalization teaching strategy, and (e) latency to maintenance probes. All studies employed single-case research designs and were evaluated using the What Works Clearinghouse pilot single-case research standards (Kratochwill et al., 2013) as adapted by Maggin, Briesch, and Chafouleas (2013). Maintenance and generalization data were evaluated using a researcher-developed rubric based on the WWC standards. Results and discussionResults indicate that 30 studies met standards or met standards with reservations while only six studies also met all of the maintenance and generalization standards. Of the six studies, five did not implement any additional strategies beyond the contacting natural contingencies that is inherent in the FCT intervention. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Rock art and mining violence on the Australian Burrup Peninsula: language wars, economy and culture

Humans have lived on the Australian continent for around 50,000 years. During that time, the indigenous people developed complex cultural, economic and social systems. These systems were sustained and expressed through the myths and songlines which comprise the indigenous people's Dreaming. It was through the Dreaming that the natural, symbolic and material worlds converge, enabling humans to orient themselves spiritually, cosmologically and geographically. This cultural and natural contingency was shattered by the British invasion and settlement of Australia from 1788. In one particular region of the country, the Burrup Peninsula, this violation has been perpetuated through the destructive practices of mining. The Burrup Peninsula is located in the remote Western Australia Pilbara region on the Dampier Archipelago. This area hosts one of the world's most extensive and significant indigenous Palaeolithic art galleries—petroglyphs that may be as old as 30,000 years Before Present. The Pilbara also contains one of the world's most extensive and richest iron ore deposits, as well as a vast array of other minerals and fuels. This paper examines the ways in which the cultural and natural heritage of the Burrup has been excoriated by the mining industries. The paper examines recent attempts to protect the heritage of the area from further destruction. It focuses on the World Heritage nomination of the Burrup, indigenous activism and the complex politics of conservation in the area.

Sartre’s Dialectical Methodology

ABSTRACTSartre’s intention in the Critique of Dialectical Reason is to establish the heuristic value of the dialectical method when applied to the social sciences. Toward this end, he furnishes an account of how, on the basis of natural needs, rational choices, burgeoning social ensembles, natural and social contingencies and unintended consequences, human beings make their history. I shall argue that his dialectical method, especially when modified, opens up interesting possibilities for clarifying the two most important and enduring meta-issues in the philosophy of social science: (1) whether social phenomena should be explained in terms of the beliefs, desires and actions of individuals or the rules and practices of social institutions (“Methodological Individualism” or “Methodological Holism”) and (2) whether social phenomena should be explained in terms of causes, as in the natural sciences, or in terms of what they mean in their social contexts, as in hermeneutics and other interpretive approaches (“Explanation” or “Understanding”).

Effectiveness of a Video Modelling Intervention in a shy, Withdrawn Preschool Child

SOCIAL WITHDRAWAL IN EARLY childhood may indicate a lack of knowledge of social skills or extreme shyness. If required, an early intervention program is the best way to ensure that the behaviour does not manifest into a more significant problem for the individual. The purpose of the current study was to assess the effectiveness of a video modelling intervention, demonstrating sharing, on the generalisation of social skills in a socially withdrawn preschooler. The intervention consisted of a target child watching a video—showing children of the same gender and age—that demonstrates children performing a ‘sharing’ sequence of behaviour. Interval sampling was used in the data collection. Results indicated a positive response to the intervention, demonstrated by an increase in the related social skills of positive verbalisations, maintained reciprocal play and reduced adult interaction. Results are discussed with reference to how behaviour is affected through natural contingencies and innate factors within the child.

Fundamentos, características y eficacia de la Psicoterapia Analítica Funcional

En este trabajo se exponen los fundamentos, las caracteristicas, y los principios conductuales en los que se basa la Psicoterapia Analitica Funcional (FAP) y sus recientes avances. Sus fundamentos son: (a) el analisis funcional de la conducta del cliente que ocurre durante la sesion, (b) las contingencias de reforzamiento natural y el moldeamiento que ocurren dentro de la sesion clinica, y (c) la equivalencia funcional del contexto clinico con la vida diaria del mismo. Se caracteriza por definir unos objetivos de intervencion, las denominadas Conductas Clinicamente Relevantes (CCR) y tambien cinco reglas terapeuticas como orientaciones fundamentales para el terapeuta. La FAP hace hincapie en la relacion cliente-terapeuta, y esto da la oportunidad de moldear y reforzar in situ las mejoras en la propia sesion clinica. Una sus mayores aportaciones es su teoria de la formacion del Yo que permite hacer un refinado analisis de los problemas relacionados con la personalidad y su tratamiento. Se describen tambien los recientes estudios de efectividad y de eficacia de esta terapia con resultados muy positivos en distintos tipos de trastornos. Finalmente, se discute su integracion con otras terapias de tercera generacion, lo que produce efectos sinergicos en los resultados.