In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to the CommentariesIan Wright, Aaron Sloman, and Luc BeaudoinWe are very grateful for the care with which the commentators have read our paper, and the sympathy with which they treated what we acknowledged to be at best a preliminary attempt to make sense of a range of phenomena involving grief and other emotions in terms of our draft architecture. We are fortunate to have commentators that are (...) so much in sympathy with what we have written.The comments of Castelfranchi and Miceli draw attention to a problem that we expect many readers to bring up, namely that there is a notion of “information processing” that cannot carry the explanatory weight that we attach to our information processing architecture. We believe that there is a concept of “information processing” such as is used by engineers who design software systems to perform such tasks as controlling an aircraft. We claim that within an appropriate system architecture, information processing states can have all the causal powers that we require for states like pain, pleasure, and the like. However this is not obvious, and defending this claim will have to await another occasion.Lloyd helpfully illustrates the relevance of our proposed architecture even to the effects of imagining the death of a loved one. He also makes the useful observation that second-order states can arise when a person who is suffering because events violate some important motivator, discovers that nothing can be done about the cause of the suffering, and then suffers even more because of feeling helpless in that situation. We acknowledge that these are phenomena that the architecture will have to accommodate, and accept the challenge to demonstrate this in due course.We believe that there is enough commonality between the commentators and ourselves to support our view that the research community is on the verge of an important new breakthrough in the study of mind, in which philosophers, psychologists, therapists, brain scientists, and AI researchers can collaborate fruitfully, and from which profound practical and theoretical consequences will follow.Related ArticlesFeature Article: Towards a Design-Based Analysis of Emotional EpisodesCommentary: Commentary by LloydCommentary: Commentary by Miceli and CastelfranchiCommentary: Commentary by BodenResponse: Response to the CommentariesCopyright © 1996 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

he design-based approach is a methodology for investigating mechanisms capable of generating mental phenomena, whether introspectively or externally observed, and whether they occur in humans, other animals or robots. The study of designs satisfying requirements for autonomous agency can provide new deep theoretical insights at the information processing level of description of mental mechanisms. Designs for working systems (whether on paper or implemented on computers) can systematically explicate old explanatory concepts and generate new concepts that allow new and richer interpretations (...) of human phenomena. To illustrate this, some aspects of human grief are analysed in terms of a particular information processing architecture being explored in our research group. We do not claim that this architecture is part of the causal structure of the human mind; rather, it represents an early stage in the iterative search for a deeper and more general architecture, capable of explaining more phenomena. However even the current early design provides an interpretative ground for some familiar phenomena, including characteristic features of certain emotional episodes, particularly the phenomenon of perturbance (a partial or total loss of control of attention). The paper attempts to expound and illustrate the design-based approach to cognitive science and philosophy, to demonstrate the potential effectiveness of the approach in generating interpretative possibilities, and to provide first steps towards an information processing account of `perturbant', emotional episodes. (shrink)

The teaching of critical thinking in public schooling is a central aim. Yet, despite its widespread acceptance in curriculum documents, critical thinking is rarely taught. Motivated by Onosko (1991), and by the efforts of some post-secondary instructors of critical thinking to get critical thinking taught in schools, I look at the recent literature on (a) critical thinking in the social studies, (b) definitions of, and programs in critical thinking, (c) teachers beliefs, and (d) the milieus in which teachers work. I (...) pose three questions and provide tentative hypotheses as to why critical thinking is not being implemented in schools. (shrink)

The standard definition of labour value assumes that capitalists abstain from consumption during the period of replacement. The nonstandard definition of labour value assumes that capitalists consume. Both the transformation problem and the problem of an invariable measure of value are necessary consequences of standard labour values. In contrast, nonstandard labour values resolve both classical contradictions.

This monograph examines the domain of classical political economy using the methodologies developed in recent years both by the new discipline of econo-physics and by computing science. This approach is used to re-examine the classical subdivisions of political economy: production, exchange, distribution and finance. The book begins by examining the most basic feature of economic life – production – and asks what it is about physical laws that allows production to take place. How is it that human labour is able (...) to modify the world? It looks at the role that information has played in the process of mass production and the extent to which human labour still remains a key resource. The Ricardian labour theory of value is re-examined in the light of econophysics, presenting agent based models in which the Ricardian theory of value appears as an emergent property. The authors present models giving rise to the class distribution of income, and the long term evolution of profit rates in market economies. Money is analysed using tools drawn both from computer science and the recent Chartalist school of financial theory. Covering a combination of techniques drawn from three areas, classical political economy, theoretical computer science and econophysics, to produce models that deepen our understanding of economic reality, this new title will be of interest to higher level doctoral and research students, as well as scientists working in the field of econophysics. (shrink)

This monograph examines the domain of classical political economy using the methodologies developed in recent years both by the new discipline of econo-physics and by computing science. This approach is used to re-examine the classical subdivisions of political economy: production, exchange, distribution and finance. The book begins by examining the most basic feature of economic life – production – and asks what it is about physical laws that allows production to take place. How is it that human labour is able (...) to modify the world? It looks at the role that information has played in the process of mass production and the extent to which human labour still remains a key resource. The Ricardian labour theory of value is re-examined in the light of econophysics, presenting agent based models in which the Ricardian theory of value appears as an emergent property. The authors present models giving rise to the class distribution of income, and the long term evolution of profit rates in market economies. Money is analysed using tools drawn both from computer science and the recent Chartalist school of financial theory. Covering a combination of techniques drawn from three areas, classical political economy, theoretical computer science and econophysics, to produce models that deepen our understanding of economic reality, this new title will be of interest to higher level doctoral and research students, as well as scientists working in the field of econophysics. (shrink)

This article is a critical notice of Bob Hale and Crispin Wright's *The Reason's Proper Study* (OUP). It focuses particularly on their attempts (crucial to their neo-logicist project) to say what a singular term is. I identify problems for their account but include some constructive suggestions about how it might be improved.

C. I. Lewis intended his systems S1–S5 as contributions to the study of “strict implication”, but in his formulation, strict implication is so thoroughly intertwined with other notions, such as possibility and negation, that it remains a problem, to separate out the properties of strict implication itself. I shall solve this problem for S2–5 and von Wright's M. The results for S3–5 are given below, while the implicative parts of S2 and M, which are rather more complicated, are given (...) in §5.In this presentation, ‘⊃’ stands for strict implication, and missing brackets for ‘⊃’ are restored by associationtothe right. Astrictformula is one of the form A ⊃ B. Axiom schemes are used throughout. (shrink)

This essay was delivered as the third and last paper at Spurgeon’s Annual Theological Conference in the summer of 2015. The theme of the Conference was the nature of the trinitarian God, neatly divided a sequence of papers on the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In this essay on the person of the Holy Spirit, Stackhouse challenges some of the assumptions we make when we speak of the Spirit as the God who is near. By placing charismatic experience (...) alongside the biblical revelation, he argues for an understanding of the person of the Spirit as no less transcendent as the Father and the Son, and actively engaged not simply in the phenomena of signs and wonders but in drawing the believer into the very life of the trinity. As the essay develops, Stackhouse seeks to draw out the implications of this approach to pneumatology for our notions of identity, holiness, prayer and Christian community. He argues for a much stronger connection in charismatic/pentecostal experience between Christ and the Spirit; and in so doing, he warns against some of the more popular, and somewhat ironic, emphases on power, method and function. As with the first paper of the day by Dr Nigel Wright, Stackhouse draws upon the work of Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. Like Wright, he regards Buber’s I-Thou construct of religious experience as critical for the future of contemporary revivalism. (shrink)

Intuitionistic logic provides an elegant solution to the Sorites Paradox. Its acceptance has been hampered by two factors. First, the lack of an accepted semantics for languages containing vague terms has led even philosophers sympathetic to intuitionism to complain that no explanation has been given of why intuitionistic logic is the correct logic for such languages. Second, switching from classical to intuitionistic logic, while it may help with the Sorites, does not appear to offer any advantages when dealing with the (...) so-called paradoxes of higher-order vagueness. We offer a proposal that makes strides on both issues. We argue that the intuitionist’s characteristic rejection of any third alethic value alongside true and false is best elaborated by taking the normal modal system S4M to be the sentential logic of the operator ‘it is clearly the case that’. S4M opens the way to an account of higher-order vagueness which avoids the paradoxes that have been thought to infect the notion. S4M is one of the modal counterparts of the intuitionistic sentential calculus and we use this fact to explain why IPC is the correct sentential logic to use when reasoning with vague statements. We also show that our key results go through in an intuitionistic version of S4M. Finally, we deploy our analysis to reply to Timothy Williamson’s objections to intuitionistic treatments of vagueness. (shrink)

In his essay ‘“Wang’s Paradox”’, Crispin Wright proposes a solution to the Sorites Paradox (in particular, the form of it he calls the ‘Paradox of Sharp Boundaries’) that involves adopting intuitionistic logic when reasoning with vague predicates. He does not give a semantic theory which accounts for the validity of intuitionistic logic (and the invalidity of stronger logics) in that area. The present essay tentatively makes good the deficiency. By applying a theorem of Tarski, it shows that intuitionistic logic (...) is the strongest logic that may be applied, given certain semantic assumptions about vague predicates. The essay ends with an inconclusive discussion of whether those semantic assumptions should be accepted. (shrink)

This is a 5 page summary with three diagrams of the main objectives and some work in progress at the University of Birmingham Cognition and Affect project. involving: Professor Glyn Humphreys (School of Psychology), and Luc Beaudoin, Chris Paterson, Tim Read, Edmund Shing, Ian Wright, Ahmed El-Shafei, and (from October 1994) Chris Complin (research students). The project is concerned with "global" design requirements for coping simultaneously with coexisting but possibly unrelated goals, desires, preferences, intentions, and other kinds of motivators, (...) all at different stages of processing. Our work builds on and extends seminal ideas of H.A.Simon (1967). We are exploring "broad and shallow" architectures combining varied capabilities most of which are not implemented in great depth. The poster summarises some ideas about management and meta-management processes, attention filtering, and the relevance to emotional states involved "perturbances", where there is partial loss of control of attention. (shrink)

This comment focuses on Chapter 9 of The Boundary Stones of Thought and the argument, due to William Tait, that Ian Rumfitt there sustains for the indeterminacy of set. I argue that Michael Dummett’s argument, based on the notion of indefinite extensibility and set aside by Rumfitt, provides a more powerful basis for the same conclusion. In addition, I outline two difficulties for the way Rumfitt attempts to save classical logic from acknowledged failures of the principle of bivalence, one specifically (...) for his treatment of the set-theoretic case, the other of more general bearing but especially germane to the case of vagueness. (shrink)

The first study of its kind, The Impact of Idealism assesses the impact of classical German philosophy on science, religion and culture. This third volume explores German Idealism's impact on the literature, art and aesthetics of the last two centuries. Each essay focuses on the legacy of an idea or concept from the high point of German philosophy around 1800, tracing out its influence on the intervening period and its importance for contemporary discussions. As well as a broad geographical and (...) historical range, including Greek tragedy, George Eliot, Thomas Mann and Samuel Beckett, and key musicians and artists such as Wagner, Andy Warhol and Frank Lloyd Wright, the volume's thematic focus is broad. Engaging closely with the key aesthetic texts of German Idealism, this collection uses examples from literature, music, art, architecture and museum studies to demonstrate Idealism's continuing influence. (shrink)

Here, Bob Hale and Crispin Wright assemble the key writings that lead to their distinctive neo-Fregean approach to the philosophy of mathematics. In addition to fourteen previously published papers, the volume features a new paper on the Julius Caesar problem; a substantial new introduction mapping out the program and the contributions made to it by the various papers; a section explaining which issues most require further attention; and bibliographies of references and further useful sources. It will be recognized as (...) the most powerful presentation yet of a neo-Fregean program. (shrink)

In the late Middle Ages the philosopher and mystic Meister Eckhart preached that to know the truth you must be the truth. But how to be the truth? Eckhart's answer comes in the form of an imperative: release yourself, let be. Only then will you be able to understand that the deepest meaning of being is releasement. Only then will you become who you truly are. This book interprets Eckhart's Latin and Middle High German writings under the banner of an (...) imperative of releasement, and then shows how the twentieth-century thinker Martin Heidegger creatively appropriates this idea at several stages of his career. Heidegger had a lifelong fascination with Eckhart, referring to him as "the old master of letters and life." Drawing on archival material and Heidegger's marginalia in his personal copies of Eckhart's writings, Moore argues that Eckhart was one of the most important figures in Heidegger's philosophy. This book also contains previously unpublished documents by Heidegger on Eckhart, as well as the first English translation of Nishitani Keiji's essay "Nietzsche's Zarathustra and Meister Eckhart," which he initially gave as a presentation in one of Heidegger's classes in 1938. (shrink)

This paper presents the data gathering of Matthew Fontine Maury at the U.S. Naval Observatory as pushing an epistemic boundary outside traditional laboratory walls. Maury's use and control of civilian navigators explicates the development of an astronomic epistemology deeply embedded in nineteenth century American society. In conclusion, following the movement of epistemic boundaries is offered as a guide to crucial moments in the development of a multifaceted modernity.

Introduction -- Evidence from children -- Evidence form infants and non-human animals -- Evidence from neuroimaging and neuropsychology -- Evidence from adults -- The cognitive basis of mindreading -- Elaborating and applying the theory.

One of the key achievements of critical realism has been to expose the modernist myth of universal reason, which holds that authentic knowledge claims must be objectively ‘pure’, uncontaminated by the subjectivity of local place, specific time and particular culture. Wright aims to address the lack of any substantial and sustained engagement between critical realism and theological critical realism with particular regard to: (a) the distinctive ontological claims of Christianity; (b) their epistemic warrant and intellectual legitimacy; and (c) scrutiny (...) of the primary source of the ontological claims of Christianity, namely the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth. As such, it functions as a prolegomena to a much needed wider debate, guided by the under-labouring services of critical realism, between Christianity and various other religious and secular worldviews. This important new text will help stimulate a debate that has yet to get out of first gear. This book will appeal to academics, graduate and post-graduate students especially, but also Christian clergy, ministers and informed laity, and members of the general public concerned with the nature of religion and its place in contemporary society. (shrink)

I Two Traditions. Scientific inquiry, seen in a very broad perspective, may be said to present two main aspects. One is the ascertaining and discovery of ...

BackgroundSocio-cultural perceptions surrounding death have profoundly changed since the 1950s with development of modern intensive care and progress in solid organ transplantation. Despite broad support for organ transplantation, many fundamental concepts and practices including brain death, organ donation after circulatory death, and some antemortem interventions to prepare for transplantation continue to be challenged. Attitudes toward the ethical issues surrounding death and organ donation may influence support for and participation in organ donation but differences between and among diverse populations have not (...) been studied.ObjectivesIn order to clarify attitudes toward brain death, organ donation after circulatory death and antemortem interventions in the context of organ donation, we conducted a scoping review of international English-language quantitative surveys in various populations.Study appraisalA search of literature up to October 2020 was performed, using multiple databases. After screening, 45 studies were found to meet pre-specified inclusion criteria.Results32 studies examined attitudes to brain death, predominantly in healthcare professionals. In most, around 75% of respondents accepted brain death as equivalent to death of the person. Less common perspectives included equating death with irreversible coma and willingness to undertake organ donation even if it caused death. 14 studies examined attitudes to organ donation following circulatory death. Around half of respondents in most studies accepted that death could be confidently diagnosed after only 5 min of cardiorespiratory arrest. The predominant reason was lack of confidence in doctors or diagnostic procedures. Only 6 studies examined attitudes towards antemortem interventions in prospective organ donors. Most respondents supported minimally invasive procedures and only where specific consent was obtained.ConclusionsOur review suggests a considerable proportion of people, including healthcare professionals, have doubts about the medical and ethical validity of modern determinations of death. The prognosis of brain injury was a more common concern in the context of organ donation decision-making than certainty of death. (shrink)

On a basic level, "cyberpsychology" refers to the comparison of the mind with different kinds of machines. This multidisciplinary collection brings together essays by leading psychologists and cultural theorists working in the spheres of technology and psychology to explore links between popular culture, technoscience, feminism and politics. Tracing historical and contemporary lines of argument around the fascination between different forms of psychological and machine culture, contributors articulate "cyberpsychological" reflections on contemporary crises in psychology with emerging technologies of the self. The (...) volume offers challenging perspectives and insights to anyone interested in the connections between psychology and technological developments in the information age. (shrink)

Science is often thought of as a methodical but dull activity. But the finest science, the breakthroughs most admired and respected by scientists themselves, is characterized by elegance." "What does elegance mean in the context of science? Economy is a considerable part of it; creativity too. Sometimes, a suggested solution is so simple and neat that it elicits an exclamation of wonder from the observer. The greatest science, whether primarily theoretical or experimental, reflects a creative imagination." "In this book, the (...) distinguished physiologist and writer Ian Glynn explores some of the finest examples of elegance in science: the delightful simplicity of the laws discovered by Kepler and Newton in the motion of the planets; Galileo's experiments with an inclined plane; the remarkable work of Thomas Young on light; dazzling insights into the counterintuitive workings of our perception demonstrated by Richard Gregory and Vilayanur Ramachandran; and the several breakthroughs that led to Crick and Watson's unravelling of the structure and function of DNA. The result is a fascinating tour through some of the most important episodes in the history of science."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

A set of replies to critics of my 2021 book 'The Fiery Test of Critique: A Reading of Kant's Dialectic' (OUP). -/- The criticisms are based on talks given at an Author-meets-critics symposium at Princeton University on April 22nd, 2023. The critics are: Beatrice Longuenesse, Patricia Kitcher, Allen Wood, Des Hogan, and Anja Jauernig.

The third edition of this classic introduction to archaeological theory and method has been fully updated to address the rapid development of theoretical debate throughout the discipline. Ian Hodder and Scott Hutson argue that archaeologists must consider a variety of perspectives in the complex and uncertain task of "translating the meaning of past texts into their own contemporary language". While remaining centered on the importance of meaning, agency and history, the authors explore the latest developments in post-structuralism, neo-evolutionary theory and (...) phenomenology. Previous Edition Hb (1991): 0-521-40142-9 Previous Edition Pb (1991): 0-521-40957-8. (shrink)

An intro. to Didaktic (the heart of thinking about teaching/teacher educ in Germany) for English-speaking readers, drawing on a range of writings assoc. w/ this tradition. Throws light on assumptions, characteristics, & weaknesses of curriculum thought.

This paper is a reply to George Boolos's three papers (Boolos (1987a, 1987b, 1990a)) concerned with the status of Hume's Principle. Five independent worries of Boolos concerning the status of Hume's Principle as an analytic truth are identified and discussed. Firstly, the ontogical concern about the commitments of Hume's Principle. Secondly, whether Hume's Principle is in fact consistent and whether the commitment to the universal number by adopting Hume's Principle might be problematic. Also the so-called `surplus content' worry is discussed, (...) which points out that the conceptual resources to grasp Hume's Principle vastly outstrip the conceptual resources employed in arithmetical reasoning. And lastly whether Hume's Principle is in bad company with other unsuccessful implicit definitions. In the last section, an account towards our entitlement to Hume&'s Principle is sketched. (shrink)

Greek text, english translation and commentary on the surviving fragments of Empedocles (fragments as known in 1981, does not include more recent finds).

Book synopsis: The philosophy of modality investigates necessity and possibility, and related notions--are they objective features of mind-independent reality? If so, are they irreducible, or can modal facts be explained in other terms? This volume presents new work on modality by established leaders in the field and by up-and-coming philosophers. Between them, the papers address fundamental questions concerning realism and anti-realism about modality, the nature and basis of facts about what is possible and what is necessary, the nature of modal (...) knowledge, modal logic and its relations to necessary existence and to counterfactual reasoning. The general introduction locates the individual contributions in the wider context of the contemporary discussion of the metaphysics and epistemology of modality. (shrink)

Edited by leading contributors to the literature, Freedom: An Anthology is the most complete anthology on social, political and economic freedom ever compiled. Offers a broad guide to the vast literature on social, political and economic freedom. Contains selections from the best scholarship of recent decades as well as classic writings from Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Kant among others. General and sectional introductions help to orient the reader. Compiled and edited by three important contributors to the field.

Marshall and colleagues (2024) contribute to the literature on autonomy and decision-making capacity by focusing on the case of individuals with opioid use disorder who refuse to remain in the hosp...

One worrying aspect of contemporary Western Society is the increasing prevalence of instances of ‘Science Denial’ in popular culture. Examples include both cases where well-attested scientific hypotheses are rejected and conversely, where scientifically discredited ideas are stubbornly retained. The paper raises the question whether the kind of argument for an anti-realist conception of empirical scientific theory considered in my contribution to the inaugural issue of this journal could in principle provide intellectual succour for these trends. The discussion proceeds through an (...) examination of the role of ‘takings for granted’ in all reflective enquiry to the conclusion that a trusting acceptance of the general credibility of informants is a precondition for the exercise of individual epistemic responsibility, and that in that context an acceptance of at least the empirical adequacy, if not the truth, realistically understood, of the teachings of scientists in general is rationally non-optional. (shrink)

In the Tractatus Wittgenstein criticizes Frege and Russell's view that laws of inference (Schlussgesetze) "justify" logical inferences. What lies behind this criticism, I argue, is an attack on Frege and Russell's conceptions of logical entailment. In passing, I examine Russell's dispute with Bradley on the question whether all relations are "internal".

In the part of the first Critique known as “The Paralogisms of Pure Reason” Kant seeks to explain how even the most acute metaphysicians could have arrived, through speculation, at the ruefully dogmatic conclusion that the self (understood as the subject of thoughts or "thinking I") is a substance. His diagnosis has two components: first, the positing of the phenomenon of “Transcendental Illusion”—an illusion, modelled on but distinct from, optical illusion--that predisposes human beings to accept as sound--and as known to (...) sound--certain in fact flawed arguments for substantive theses about the nature of the self; second, the identification of the fallacy we commit when we succumb to this illusion. It is explained how these two elements combine to produce a central instance of (what Kant sees as) dogmatic speculative metaphysics, namely, the doctrine that the self is a substance in the sense of a necessarily non-inhering subject of inherence. It is argued that Kant has a novel, ingenious, and even somewhat plausible account of the route by which the rational psychologist arrives--or might arrive--at this view, an account that involves identifying a rather deep-rooted confusion about the very nature of conceivability. (shrink)

An expanded & revised version of Religion in an Age of Science. Three new chapters on physics & metaphysics in the 18th century and biology & theology in the 19th century. Other new sections included.

It is often said that one person or society is `freer' than another, or that people have a right to equal freedom, or that freedom should be increased or even maximized. Such quantitative claims about freedom are of great importance to us, forming an essential part of our political discourse and theorizing. Yet their meaning has been surprisingly neglected by political philosophers until now. Ian Carter provides the first systematic account of the nature and importance of our judgements about degrees (...) of freedom. He begins with an analysis of the normative assumptions behind the claim that individuals are entitled to a measure of freedom, and then goes on to ask whether it is indeed conceptually possible to measure freedom. Adopting a coherentist approach, the author argues for a conception of freedom that not only reflects commonly held intuitions about who is freer than who but is also compatible with a liberal or freedom-based theory of justice. (shrink)