Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 26 Heft: 2 Seiten: 331-359.

It has been claimed that Massimi’s recent perspectival approach to science sits in tension with a realist stance. I shall argue that this tension can be defused in the quantum context by recasting Massimi’s perspectivalism within a phenomenological framework. I shall begin by indicating how the different but complementary forms of the former are manifested in the distinction between certain so-called ‘-epistemic’ and ‘-ontic’ understandings of quantum mechanics, namely QBism and Relational Quantum Mechanics, respectively. A brief consideration of Dieks’ perspectivism (...) will then lead to a consideration of the much-maligned and typically dismissed role of the observer in the measurement process. This opens the door to London and Bauer’s presentation of a form of ‘phenomenological quantum perspectivalism’ that brings together Massimi’s two forms and explicitly eschews the ‘naïve’ realism that creates the above tension. I shall conclude with some reflections on how intersubjectivity can still be established within this framework, focusing in particular on how Massimi’s idea of ‘interlacing’ scientific perspectives can be accommodated, using the example of a ‘new cosmopolitanism’ that gave rise to Bose-Einstein statistics. (shrink)

In the only two articles on the topic of which I am aware, Chad Carlson and Scott Aikin have leveled three objections against fantasy sports—namely, that participation in fantasy sports elicits...

The aim of this paper is to prove strengthenings of three theorems appearing in Jensen [1].

Plato Plato (427-347 BC) is surely the most famous of all philosophers. Little is known of his early life, except that he was born into a noble Athenian ...

Weinberg's 1972 work, in his description, had two purposes. The first was practical to bring together and assess the wealth of data provided over the previous decade while realizing that newer data would come in even as the book was being printed. He hoped the comprehensive picture would prepare the reader and himself to that new data as it emerged. The second was to produce a textbook about general relativity in which geometric ideas were not given a starring role for (...) (in his words) too great an emphasis on geometry can only obscure the deep connections between gravitation and the rest of physics. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to prove strengthenings of three theorems appearing in Jensen [1].

"Science is rooted in conversations," wrote Werner Heisenberg, one of the twentieth century's great physicists. In Quantum Dialogue, Mara Beller shows that science is rooted not just in conversation but in disagreement, doubt, and uncertainty. She argues that it is precisely this culture of dialogue and controversy within the scientific community that fuels creativity. Beller draws her argument from her radical new reading of the history of the quantum revolution, especially the development of the Copenhagen interpretation. One of (...) several competing approaches, this version succeeded largely due to the rhetorical skills of Niels Bohr and his colleagues. Using extensive archival research, Beller shows how Bohr and others marketed their views, misrepresenting and dismissing their opponents as "unreasonable" and championing their own not always coherent or well-supported position as "inevitable." Quantum Dialogue, winner of the 1999 Morris D. Forkosch Prize of the Journal of the History of Ideas, will fascinate everyone interested in how stories of "scientific revolutions" are constructed and "scientific consensus" achieved. "[A]n intellectually stimulating piece of work, energised by a distinct point of view."—Dipankar Home, Times Higher Education Supplement "[R]emarkable and original. . . . [Beller's] arguments are thoroughly supported and her conclusions are meticulously argued. . . . This is an important book that all who are interested in the emergence of quantum mechanics will want to read."—William Evenson, History of Physics Newsletter. (shrink)

Consciousness is one of the most significant scientific problems today. Renewed interest in the nature of consciousness - a phenomenon long considered not to be scientifically explorable, as well as increasingly widespread availability of multimodal functional brain imaging techniques (EEG, ERP, MEG, fMRI and PET), now offer the possibility of detailed, integrated exploration of the neural, behavioral, and computational correlates of consciousness. The present volume aims to confront the latest theoretical insights in the scientific study of human consciousness with the (...) most recent behavioral, neuroimaging, electrophysiological, pharmacological and neuropathological data on brain function in altered states of consciousness such as: brain death, coma, vegetative state, minimally conscious state, locked-in syndrome, dementia, epilepsy, schizophrenia, hysteria, general anesthesia, sleep, hypnosis, and hallucinations. The interest of this is threefold. First, patients with altered states of consciousness continue to represent a major clinical problem in terms of clinical assessment of consciousness and daily management. Second, the exploration of brain function in altered states of consciousness represents a unique lesional approach to the scientific study of consciousness and adds to the worldwide effort to identify the "neural correlate of consciousness". Third, new scientific insights in this field have major ethical and social implications regarding our care for these patients. (shrink)

Metacognitive research is dominated by meta-memory studies; meta-reasoning research is nascent. Accessibility – the number of associations for a stimulus – is a reliable heuristic cue for Feeling of Knowing when answering knowledge questions. We used a similar cue, subjective accessibility, for exposing commonalities and differences between meta-reasoning and meta-memory. In Experiment 1, participants faced solvable Compound Remote Associate problems mixed with unsolvable random word triads. We collected initial Judgement of Solvability, final JOS and confidence. Experiment 2 focused on confidence, (...) controlling for potential interactions among judgements. In Experiment 3, the participants memorised the same triads and rated Ease of Learning and Judgement of Learning. sAccessibility was associated with all judgements. Notably, it reliably predicted memory judgements and confidence in the provided solutions. However, it was unreliable for judging solvability. The findings highlight the importance of studying meta-reasoning for exposing the biasing factors in reasoning processes and for getting a broad perspective on metacognitive processes. (shrink)

Anthropology and the other cognitive science (CS) subdisciplines currently maintain a troubled relationship. With a debate in topiCS we aim at exploring the prospects for improving this relationship, and our introduction is intended as a catalyst for this debate. In order to encourage a frank sharing of perspectives, our comments will be deliberately provocative. Several challenges for a successful rapprochement are identified, encompassing the diverging paths that CS and anthropology have taken in the past, the degree of compatibility between (1) (...) CS and (2) anthropology with regard to methodology and (3) research strategies, (4) the importance of anthropology for CS, and (5) the need for disciplinary diversity. Given this set of challenges, a reconciliation seems unlikely to follow on the heels of good intentions alone. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the internal structure of Gandhi's ethics as a way to determine opportunities for improving that system's ability to influence behavior. In this paper, the author aims to work under the idea that a system of ethics is a guide for social responsibility. -/- Design/methodology/approach – The data source is Gandhi's set of ethics as described by Naess. These simple (primarily quantitative) studies compare the concepts within the code of ethics, and (...) their relationships to one another. -/- Findings – Gandhi's ethics are robust at the 0.25 level (the scale is zero to one – zero is lowest). This is consistent with theories of the social sciences (that do not work well in practice). Gandhi's success might be ascribed to his leadership ability. -/- Research limitations/implications – Some suggest this approach is reductionist because of its superficial similarity to approaches of physical science. The implications for research are profound. First, this approach provides an objective method for comparing (and so, advancing) systems of ethics. Second, this paper suggests the opportunity to compare the internal structure of ethics with “external” aspects – the implementation of ethical systems. -/- Practical implications – By itself, Gandhi's system of ethics cannot be reliably applied in practice - it cannot be expected to change behavior more than any other system of ethics. This raises concerns about other ethical codes as well. The practical implications of the form of analysis presented in this paper are immense because it provides a way for practitioners to objectively compare two codes of ethics and determine which one will be more effective. -/- Originality/value – The approach documented in the paper has never been applied to the field of ethics. It is unique in that it addresses the “internal” structure of a system of ethics (compared to the “external”, or application, of ethical systems). (shrink)

Axiomatic set theory is the concern of this book. More particularly, the authors prove results about the coding of models M, of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory together with the Generalized Continuum Hypothesis by using a class 'forcing' construction. By this method they extend M to another model L[a] with the same properties. L[a] is Gödels universe of 'constructible' sets L, together with a set of integers a which code all the cardinality and cofinality structure of M. Some applications are also considered. (...) Graduate students and research workers in set theory and logic will be especially interested by this account. (shrink)

Are liberalism and perfectionism compatible? In this study Steven Wall presents and defends a perfectionist account of political morality that takes issue with many currently fashionable liberal ideas but retains the strong liberal commitment to the ideal of personal autonomy. He begins by critically discussing the most influential version of anti-perfectionist liberalism, examining the main arguments that have been offered in its defence. He then clarifies the ideal of personal autonomy, presents an account of its value and shows that (...) a strong commitment to personal autonomy is fully compatible with an endorsement of perfectionist political action designed to promote valuable pursuits and discourage base ones. (shrink)

Beller, Bender, & Jordan [Intro]. Which factors have triggered, constrained, or shaped the course of cognitive evolution is a question of key interest to cognitive science. The topic introduced here highlights the relevance of culture as a driving force in this process. It provides an overview of current empirical and theoretical work leading this field, and it investigates the potential for integrating multiple perspectives across several timescales and levels of analysis.

When creating theory to understand or implement change at the social and/or organizational level, it is generally accepted that part of the theory building process includes a process of abstraction. While the process of abstraction is well understood, it is not so well understood how abstractions “fit” together to enable the creation of better theory. Starting with a few simple ideas, this paper explores one way we work with abstractions. This exploration challenges the traditionally held importance of abstracting concepts from (...) experience. That traditional focus has been one-sided—pushing science toward the discovery of data without the balancing process that occurs with the integration of the data. Without such balance, the sciences have been pushed toward fragmentation. Instead, in the present paper, new emphasis is placed on the relationship between abstract concepts. Specifically, this paper suggests that a better theory is one that is constructed of concepts that exist on a similar level of abstraction. Suggestions are made for quantifying this claim and using the insights to enable scholars and practitioners to create more effective theory. (shrink)

A provocative argument that environmental thinking would be better off if it dropped the concept of “nature” altogether and spoke instead of the built environment. -/- Environmentalism, in theory and practice, is concerned with protecting nature. But if we have now reached “the end of nature,” as Bill McKibben and other environmental thinkers have declared, what is there left to protect? In Thinking like a Mall, Steven Vogel argues that environmental thinking would be better off if it dropped the (...) concept of “nature” altogether and spoke instead of the “environment”—that is, the world that actually surrounds us, which is always a built world, the only one that we inhabit. We need to think not so much like a mountain (as Aldo Leopold urged) as like a mall. Shopping malls, too, are part of the environment and deserve as much serious consideration from environmental thinkers as do mountains. -/- Vogel argues provocatively that environmental philosophy, in its ethics, should no longer draw a distinction between the natural and the artificial and, in its politics, should abandon the idea that something beyond human practices (such as “nature”) can serve as a standard determining what those practices ought to be. The appeal to nature distinct from the built environment, he contends, may be not merely unhelpful to environmental thinking but in itself harmful to that thinking. The question for environmental philosophy is not “how can we save nature?” but rather “what environment should we inhabit, and what practices should we engage in to help build it?”. (shrink)

Why do policies fail? How can we objectively choose the best policy from two (or more) competing alternatives? How can we create better policies? To answer these critical questions this book presents an innovative yet workable approach. Avoiding Policy Failure uses emerging metapolicy methodologies in case studies that compare successful policies with ones that have failed. Those studies investigate the systemic nature of each policy text to gain new insights into why policies fail. -/- In addition to providing intriguing directions (...) for research, this book also suggests a bold new standard for evaluating policies. While this method is broadly generalizable, specific examples are provided showing how to develop better Economic Policy, Military Policy, and Constitutional Organizations. This book shows scholars, researchers, and policy analysts how to develop more effective policies so that we may achieve our highest aspirations and avoid the horrendous failures of the past. (shrink)

Spinoza's Ethics is one of the most remarkable, important, and difficult books in the history of philosophy: a treatise simultaneously on metaphysics, knowledge, philosophical psychology, moral philosophy, and political philosophy. It presents, in Spinoza's famous 'geometric method', his radical views on God, Nature, the human being, and happiness. In this wide-ranging 2006 introduction to the work, Steven Nadler explains the doctrines and arguments of the Ethics, and shows why Spinoza's endlessly fascinating ideas may have been so troubling to his (...) contemporaries, as well as why they are still highly relevant today. He also examines the philosophical background to Spinoza's thought and the dialogues in which Spinoza was engaged - with his contemporaries, with ancient thinkers, and with his Jewish rationalist forebears. His book is written for the student reader but will also be of interest to specialists in early modern philosophy. (shrink)

Deontic reasoning is thinking about whether actions are forbidden or allowed, obligatory or not obligatory. It is proposed that social norms, imposing constraints on individual actions, constitute the fundamental concept for the system of these four deontic modalities, and that people reason from such norms flexibly according to deontic core principles. Two experiments are presented, one on deontic conditional reasoning, the other on “pure” deontic reasoning. Both experiments demonstrate people's high deontic competence and confirm the proposed representational and inferential principles. (...) Experiment 1 additionally shows small effects of the conditional formulations. These findings support the dual source approach (Beller & Spada, 2003) that distinguishes between domain-specific and domain-general inferences. Implications for other theories of deontic reasoning are discussed. (shrink)

While examining the important role of imagination in making moral judgments, John Dewey and Moral Imagination focuses new attention on the relationship between American pragmatism and ethics. Steven Fesmire takes up threads of Dewey's thought that have been largely unexplored and elaborates pragmatism's distinctive contribution to understandings of moral experience, inquiry, and judgment. Building on two Deweyan notions—that moral character, belief, and reasoning are part of a social and historical context and that moral deliberation is an imaginative, dramatic rehearsal (...) of possibilities—Fesmire shows that moral imagination can be conceived as a process of aesthetic perception and artistic creativity. Fesmire's original readings of Dewey shed new light on the imaginative process, human emotional make-up and expression, and the nature of moral judgment. This original book presents a robust and distinctly pragmatic approach to ethics, politics, moral education, and moral conduct. [The downloadable sample is Chapter Seven, "The Moral Artist."]. (shrink)

This paper argues against the possibility of presenting a consistent version of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Physics, characterizing its founders' philosophical pronouncements including those on the realism-antirealism issue, as a contingent collection of local, often contradictory, moves in changing theoretical and sociopolitical circumstances. The paper analyzes the fundamental differences of opinion between Bohr and the mathematical physicists, Heisenberg and Born, concerning the foundational doctrine of the "indispensability of classical concepts", and their related disagreements on "quantum reality." The paper concludes (...) with an explanation of how the appearance of consensus was achieved despite fundamental disagreements among the proponents. The paper undermines the adequacy of the notion of a general conceptual framework to describe the philosophical endeavors of working scientists. (shrink)

In _The World Computer_ Jonathan Beller forcefully demonstrates that the history of commodification generates information itself. Out of the omnipresent calculus imposed by commodification, information emerges historically as a new money form. Investigating its subsequent financialization of daily life and colonization of semiotics, Beller situates the development of myriad systems for quantifying the value of people, objects, and affects as endemic to racial capitalism and computation. Built on oppression and genocide, capital and its technical result as computation manifest (...) as racial formations, as do the machines and software of social mediation that feed racial capitalism and run on social difference. Algorithms, derived from for-profit management strategies, conscript all forms of expression—language, image, music, communication—into the calculus of capital such that even protest may turn a profit. Computational media function for the purpose of extraction rather than ameliorating global crises, and financialize every expressive act, converting each utterance into a wager. Repairing this ecology of exploitation, Beller contends, requires decolonizing information and money, and the scripting of futures wagered by the cultural legacies and claims of those in struggle. (shrink)

Anthropology and the other cognitive sciences currently maintain a troubled relationship. What could rapprochement look like, and how could it be achieved? The seven main articles of this topic present anthropological or anthropologically inspired cross-cultural research on a diverse set of cognitive domains. They serve as an existence proof that not only do synergies abound across anthropology and the other cognitive sciences, but that they are worth achieving.

In order to resolve the controversial discussion regarding content effects in deductive reasoning, we propose distinguishing between two inferential sources—an argument's form , and additional relations people associate with the argument's content —and analysing their interplay. Both sources are equally necessary in order to understand the role content plays in deductive reasoning. People make valid deductions from the content relations ( content competence ), but in thematic reasoning tasks, these deductions lead to the intriguing phenomenon known as content effects . (...) Focusing on the interplay of both sources of inferences, the dual source distinction enables a novel class of predictions to be made, namely the correct mastery of the logical connectors ( form competence ) in tasks that require the individual to think about an argument's form in relation to its content. To illustrate the dual source approach and its implications, the selection task paradigm of conditional reasoning with a point of view is used in combination with two content domains: conditional promises with cheating and non-cheating perspectives and technical systems with causal perspectives. Experimental findings corroborate all three phenomena: content competence, content effects, and form competence. The dual source distinction is discussed with regard to current theories of reasoning. (shrink)

This paper offers a realist critique of socialresearch on health inequalities. A conspectus of thefield of health inequalities research identifies twomain research approaches: the positivist quantitativesurvey and the interpretivist qualitative `casestudy'. We argue that both approaches suffer fromserious philosophical limitations. We suggest that aturn to realism offers a productive `third way' bothfor the development of health inequality research inparticular and for the social scientific understandingof the complexities of the social world in general.

In ancient times, when persuasion played the role of public force, eloquence was necessary. Of what use would it be today, when public force has replaced persuasion. One needs neither art nor metaphor to say such is my pleasure. Jean Jacques Rousseau.

Conditional promises and threats are speech acts that are used to manipulate other people's behaviour. Studies on human reasoning typically use propositional logic to analyse what people infer from such inducements. While this approach is sufficient to uncover conceptual features of inducements, it fails to explain them. To overcome this limitation, we propose a multilevel analysis integrating motivational, linguistic, deontic, behavioural, and emotional aspects. Commonalities and differences between conditional promises and threats on various levels were examined in two experiments. The (...) first shows that both types of inducements are understood as being complementary on the linguistic level, but not reversible, due to the specific temporal order of their actions. In addition, it gives a first assessment of emotional reactions. The second experiment investigated the novel question of whether complementary promises and threats, despite semantic differences, both imply an obligation to cooperate on the deontic level. The data corroborate this hypothesis, and they support various appraisal-theoretical assumptions on the elicitation of emotions. They also reveal that content affects not only the attribution of emotions, but also the deontic interpretation. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to combine the intellectual and the psychosocial aspects. blurring the distinction between the conceptual and the anecdotal history of quantum mechanics. The full realization of the importance of such “anecdotal” factors leads to the revision of our understanding of the conceptual development itself. The paper concludes with the suggestion that a major part of numerous inconsistencies in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics are of a psychosocial origin.

When creating theory to understand or implement change at the social and/or organizational level, it is generally accepted that part of the theory building process includes a process of abstraction. While the process of abstraction is well understood, it is not so well understood how abstractions “fit” together to enable the creation of better theory. Starting with a few simple ideas, this paper explores one way we work with abstractions. This exploration challenges the traditionally held importance of abstracting concepts from (...) experience. That traditional focus has been one-sided—pushing science toward the discovery of data without the balancing process that occurs with the integration of the data. Without such balance, the sciences have been pushed toward fragmentation. Instead, in the present paper, new emphasis is placed on the relationship between abstract concepts. Specifically, this paper suggests that a better theory is one that is constructed of concepts that exist on a similar level of abstraction. Suggestions are made for quantifying this claim and using the insights to enable scholars and practitioners to create more effective theory. (shrink)

An introduction to and critique of the latest trends in critical theory.

The hoax perpetrated by New York University theoretical physicist Alan Sokal in 1996 on the editors of the journal Social Text quickly became widely known and hotly debated. (See Physics Today January 1997, page 61, and March 1997, page 73.) "Transgressing the Boundaries -- Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," was the title of the parody he slipped past the unsuspecting editors. [1] Many readers of Sokal's article characterized it as an ingenious exposure of the decline of the intellectual (...) standards in contemporary academia, and as a brilliant parody of the postmodern nonsense rampant among the cultural studies of science. Sokal's paper is variously, so we read, "a hilarious compilation of pomo gibberish", "an imitation of academic babble", and even "a transformative hermeneutics of total bullshit". [2] Many scientists reported having "great fun" and "a great laugh" reading Sokal's article. Yet whom, exactly, are we laughing at? (shrink)

As part of the preparations to establish a population-based biobank in a large Israeli health organization, we aimed to investigate through focus groups the knowledge, perceptions and attitudes of insured Israelis, toward biobanking, and then, after input from focus groups’ participants, to empirically assess the impact of a revised recruitment process on recruitment rates. 1) Six Focus group discussions were conducted with individuals who had routine blood laboratory tests taken in the last 2 years. 2) After addressing the issues raised (...) in the focus groups and revising the recruitment process, individuals undergoing routine blood tests in phlebotomy clinics were invited to participate in the future biobank. Six Focus group discussions were conducted with individuals who had routine blood laboratory tests taken in the last 2 years. After addressing the issues raised in the focus groups and revising the recruitment process, individuals undergoing routine blood tests in phlebotomy clinics were invited to participate in the future biobank. At the outset of the focus groups there was an overall positive response to the prospect of a population-based biobank. Concerns revolved around infringement on privacy, fears of the “big brother”, and anxiety about inequality. Reaction to the language of the informed consent document revolved around concerns over ability to maintain anonymity, to withdraw consent, involvement of commercial entities, and the general tenor of the informed consent, which was perceived as legalistic and unilateral. In general, the longer participants were exposed to discussion about the biobank, the less likely they were to consent to sign in. Overall, only 20% of the 60 participants stated they would agree to sign in by the end of the 2 hour group session. The feedback obtained from the focus groups was used in the second stage of the study. A team of recruiters received extensive training to enable fruitful discussion and a detailed explanation to questions and concerns raised during the recruitment process. During the second stage of the study, after revising the consent form and training recruiters, a 53% consent rate was observed among 10,262 participants, more than 4 fold higher than estimated at the focus group stage. The qualitative focus group research helped identify important perceptions and concerns, which were subsequently addressed in the revised consent form and in the discussion the recruiters had with potential biobank donors. (shrink)