Dept. of Philosophy

Recent years have seen the development of an approach both to general philosophy and philosophy of science often referred to as 'experimental philosophy' or just 'X-Phi'. Philosophers often make or presuppose empirical claims about how people would react to hypothetical cases, but their evidence for claims about what 'we' would say is usually very limited indeed. Philosophers of science have largely relied on their more or less intimate knowledge of their field of study to draw hypothetical conclusions about the state of scientific concepts and the nature of conceptual change in science. What they are lacking is some more objective quantitative data supporting their hypotheses. A growing number of philosophers (of science), along with a few psychologists and anthropologists, have tried to remedy this situation by designing experiments aimed at systematically exploring people's reactions to philosophically important thought experiments or scientists' use of their scientific concepts. Many of the results have been surprising and some of the conclusions drawn from them have been more than a bit provocative. This symposium attempts to provide a window into this new field of philosophical inquiry and to show how experimental philosophy provides crucial tools for the philosopher and encourages two-way interactions between scientists and philosophers.

I use a recent 'experimental philosophy' study of the concept of the gene conducted by myself and collaborators to discuss the broader epistemological framework within which that research was conducted, and to reflect on the relationship between science, history and philosophy of science, and society.

This paper describes one complete and one ongoing empirical study in which philosophical analyses of the concept of the gene were operationalized and tested using questionnaire data obtained from working biologists. These studies throw light on how different gene concepts contribute to biological research. Their aim is not to arrive at one or more correct 'definitions' of the gene, but rather to map out the variation in the gene concept and to explore its causes and its effects.

The 'developmental systems' perspective in biology is intended to replace the idea of a genetic program. This new perspective is strongly convergent with recent work in psychology on situated/embodied cognition and on the role of external 'scaffolding' in cognitive development. Cognitive processes, including those which can be explained in evolutionary terms, are not 'inherited' or produced in accordance with an inherited program. Instead, they are constructed in each generation through the interaction of a range of developmental resources. The attractors which emerge during development and explain robust and/or widespread outcomes are themselves constructed during the process. At no stage is there an explanatory stopping point where some resources control or program the rest of the developmental cascade. 'Human nature' is a description of how things generally turn out, not an explanation of why they turn out that way. Finally, we suggest that what is distinctive about human development is its degree of reliance on external scaffolding.

Recent theories in cognitive science have begun to focus on the active role of organisms in shaping their own environment, and the role of these environmental resources for cognition. Approaches such as situated, embedded, ecological, distributed and particularly extended cognition look beyond ‘what is inside your head’ to the old Gibsonian question of ‘what your head is inside of’ and with which it forms a wider whole—its internal and external cognitive niche. Since these views have been treated as a radical departure from the received view of cognition, their proponents have looked for support to similar extended views within (the philosophy of) biology, most notably the theory of niche construction. This paper argues that there is an even closer and more fruitful parallel with developmental systems theory and developmental niche construction. These ask not ‘what is inside the genes you inherited’, but ‘what the inherited genes are inside of’ and with which they form a wider whole—their internal and external ontogenetic niche, understood as the set of epigenetic, social, ecological, epistemic and symbolic legacies inherited by the organism as necessary developmental resources. To the cognizing agent, the epistemic niche presents itself not just as a partially self-engineered selective niche, as the niche construction paradigm will have it, but even more so as a partially self-engineered ontogenetic niche, a problem-solving resource and scaffold for individual development and learning. This move should be beneficial for coming to grips with our own (including cognitive) nature: what is most distinctive about humans is their developmentally plastic brains immersed into a well-engineered, cumulatively constructed cognitive–developmental niche.

Poetry has many forms we are told, and we are often conditioned to consider these forms in terms of sonnets, villanelles, ballads, elegies, epics, laments, odes and lyric poems, along with many other types. We might also take into consideration, the 8 feet types, such as iamb, trochee, anapaest, dactyl, spondee, pyrrhic, amphibrach and amphimacer, as well as all the other types of functionary forms. However, poetry can appear in other ways, such as irony, metaphor, simile or justice. Oliver Hogue's death in 1919, after the war had finished, may be said to be ironic because he had written a poem just prior to his death stating that the horses would stay behind, implying that he would go home. In fact, he was right, but he also stayed behind, dying of Spanish flu. There are many such ironic stories related to Great War poetry, such as Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg and Ivor Gurney, each of whom had an ironic tale to tell. However, the end of the war to end all wars, the Great War, was also poetic in its form, for it possessed the alliteration of structure. The eleventh day of the eleventh month, at the eleventh hour of 1918. The thought behind this time and date was so well conceived, that we find it, like all truly good poetry, quite difficult to forget. Even the term, " The Great War " , is poetic, for it indicates big, important, grand-scale, and all of these such adjectival epithets, but it was considered, at the time, to be so great that it was also known as " the war to end all wars ". Such terms and phrases as " The Great War " and " the war to end all wars " are dripping with poetic imagery, such that the very infrastructure of the words, considering what we now know about the war, are ironic and sardonic. It was not so great for those affected by it, and it was not the end of all wars for those who fought in World War Two and other wars. We might also consider that 2018, being the centennial anniversary of the ending of the war, is in its own way, poetic. Any centennial year, or bicentennial year, is poetic in as much as it is a grand culmination of time. It is celebrated and looked for. It is, in a time sense, most indicative of its anniversary antecedent. It is the time that makes us remember most the cause of that time before. Like all great poetry, anniversaries are much the same as the rhyming word at the end of each stanza, and the 100th rhyme is the most melodious. It may be for this reason that people tend to celebrate the 100th anniversary of an event with more vigour and poignancy than any other anniversary.

This  paper  looks  at  the  demotic  tongue  of  mateship  in  Australian  Great  War  Literature  as  a  theme  of  cognition  and  understanding  in  the literary texts and texts of culture. The language, like the Australian,  was  filled  with  character  and  a  sense  of  the  larrikin.  It  seemed  irreverent at times, even rude in some circles, but it was much more than its immediate sound or inference; it was the natural verbal essence of the Australian mind – honest, loyal, dutiful and humorous. These characteristics are cornerstones of Australian mateship, a type of friendship that would be there beyond the bitter end, rival the love of a woman and even the protection of one’s own life. For some Australians,  poetry  was  merely  an  extension  of  this  language,  as  language was merely an extension of friendship. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the Australian use of humour and language in the setting of Great War poetry. It looks at the demotic tongue of mateship, specifically what is known as the Great Australian  Adjective  (bloody),  along  with  several  other  examples  of  vernacular  language,  in  Australian  Great  War  Literature,  and  considers  this  by  referring  to  the  common  language  of  the  Australian  poet from the time. It will consider the notion that Australian writers of  the  Great  War  era  may  have  been  misunderstood  as  a  result  of  their  language,  leading  to  critical  mistakes  about  a  poem’s  literary  worth, a poet’s seriousness as a poet and a nation’s literary value.

In 1842 Adelaide, Australia, a baby girl was born who would go on to become the most important religious figure in Australian history. She was born into a great poverty that she would come to embrace as a way of being close to God. She co-found the Josephite Order of nuns and set up schools and hostels all over the country. She was afflicted with crippling pains and also persecuted by many within the Church. She was unjustly excommunicated and then exonerated by the same Bishop on his death bed. She trusted in God’s Providence and ended as a saint.

This article is about why and how the soul and mind do not age or change in the same way as the body and brain. Because the soul and body are distinct and separate substances, they must ultimately belong to different realities, and because of this, the soul cannot adhere to the rules of a reality of which does not control it. The reality of the body is temporal, and therefore, it will age and die, whereas the reality of the soul is eternal and will not age and die. Further to this, because the mind is a faculty of the soul, it necessarily will not age and die like the brain, but it will be effected both positively and negatively by the brain during the reality of the temporal life, unlike the soul. Because the mind needs the brain in order to think and understand in the temporal reality, then it stands to reason that the mind will appear to degenerate like the brain, but in the non-temporal reality, the mind remains unaffected. Because of these things, there must also be a realisation that reason is the domain of temporality, whereas revelation is the domain of eternity. Because of this, we will conclude that reason will ultimately fail and revelation will not. The body also needs nourishment, as does the soul, but this is different for each. The body and the soul need nourishment from their own kind; ashes and dust for the body, and God for the soul. The body made from ashes and dust; the soul made in God’s image. The changing of the created function of something is what determines its continued existence, and while the body changes, the soul does not. The use of tense-laden grammar is characteristic of the temporal reality, but tense cannot exist in eternity where there is a constant ‘now’. It is demonstrated that these grammar concepts do not even exist in temporality, as there is no past or future ‘existing’. The present, being the only true existing tense, is also the only truth we can assert about the soul whose created function is to live. It exists through the eternal now, while the body ages and dies in temporality.

Throughout the ages poets have spoken about God and to God in all manner of ways. They cried out for help and sung out in praise, and the tones of their verse have been anything from base familiarity to exultant praise. But all poets have recognised God as a standard for mankind’s sense of morality and ethics, as well as the locus of the true self. However, poets who found themselves living in times of war often spoke of God in a more earnest and even urgent way. They saw God as a means of protection and succour. As someone to be with in good times and to turn to in the worst moments. This is of course most normal, however, the Australian Great War poets, who also saw God in these ways, saw God in their fellow man and the world around them. They saw the destruction caused by war as a desecration of God and a sacrilege against Him. Australian poets, men and women, servicemen, nurses and civilians, saw God as the first and last refuge of sane men. Not in any pantheistic way, God was seen in the soldier’s fellow man and the landscape of Australia. In the case of man, who was made in God’s image, Australian poets saw God’s image in the reflection of innocence and good deeds, while in the case of the Australian landscape, poets saw God’s hand of creation. For the Australian Great War poet, God was the binding factor of human existence.

At the beginning of World War One, Australia was a mere teenager of just 14 years when it hit the international stage. It had a lot to prove if it wanted to join the other nations of the wider world. However, all that, and Australia’s future good name, stood to be lost before it was even able to prove its international worth. Before Australians were to prove themselves in all theatres of war, an incident in Egypt’s Cairo was to threaten everything. What followed was a war of words which was fuelled by article and poem – correspondent and soldier.

Indigenous Australians (Aborigines) believe in two parallel streams of reality – in other words, two types of time – one is the every day activity we all experience and the other is an infinite spiritual reality they call the ‘dreamtime’. They believe that whatever happens in the dreamtime establishes the values, symbols, and laws of their society. The Dreaming is a sacred time when ancestral Totemic Spirit Beings formed The Creation.