Studies of categorical induction typically examine how belief in a premise (e.g., Falcons have an ulnar artery) projects on to a conclusion (e.g., Robins have an ulnar artery). We study induction in cases in which the premise is uncertain (e.g., There is an 80% chance that falcons have an ulnar artery). Jeffrey's rule is a normative model for updating beliefs in the face of uncertain evidence. In three studies we tested the descriptive validity of Jeffrey's rule and a related probability (...) theorem, the rule of total probability. Although these rules provided good approximations to mean judgments in some cases, the results from regression and correlation analyses suggest that participants focus on the parts of these rules that are associated with the highest overall probability. We relate our findings to rational models of judgment. (shrink)

A feature is central to a concept to the extent that other features depend on it. Four studies tested the hypothesis that people will project a feature from a base concept to a target concept to the extent that they believe the feature is central to the two concepts. This centrality hypothesis implies that feature projection is guided by a principle that aims to maximize the structural commonality between base and target concepts. Participants were told that a category has two (...) or three novel features. One feature was the most central in that more properties depended on it. The extent to which the target shared the feature's dependencies was manipulated by varying the similarity of category pairs. Participants' ratings of the likelihood that each feature would hold in the target category support the centrality hypothesis with both natural kind and artifact categories and with both well-specified and vague dependency structures. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWe examined whether enhancing the emotionality of a referent public good influences the subsequent valuation of a target public good. We predicted that it would and that the directionality of its impact would depend on a fundamental cognitive process – categorisation. If the target and referent goods belong to the same domain, we expected that the effect on the target would be in the same direction as the emotional enhancement of the referent. However, if the target and referent goods belong (...) to different domains, we expected that the effect on the target would be either negligible or in the opposite direction to that of the emotional enhancement of the referent. In Experiment 1 we examined the impact of emotionally enhancing a referent public good on feelings towards a target public good, whereas in Experiment 2 on the willingness to contribute towards a target public good. The results support the predicted interaction, which was... (shrink)

Oaksford & Chater (O&C) begin in the halfway Bayesian house of assuming that minor premises in conditional inferences are certain. We demonstrate that this assumption is a serious limitation. They additionally suggest that appealing to Jeffrey's rule could make their approach more general. We present evidence that this rule is not limited enough to account for actual probability judgements.

ABSTRACTWe investigated whether moral violations involving harm selectively elicit anger, whereas purity violations selectively elicit disgust, as predicted by the Moral Foundations Theory. We analysed participants’ spontaneous facial expressions as they listened to scenarios depicting moral violations of harm and purity. As predicted by MFT, anger reactions were elicited more frequently by harmful than by impure actions. However, violations of purity elicited more smiling reactions and expressions of anger than of disgust. This effect was found both in a classic set (...) of scenarios and in a new set in which the different kinds of violations were matched on weirdness. Overall, these findings are at odds with predictions derived from MFT and provide support for “monist” accounts that posit harm at the basis of all moral violations. However, we found that smiles were differentially linked to purity violations, which leaves open the possibility of distinct moral modules. (shrink)

Research suggests that moral evaluations change during adulthood. Older adults (75+) tend to judge accidentally harmful acts more severely than younger adults do, and this age‐related difference is in part due to the greater negligence older adults attribute to the accidental harmdoers. Across two studies (N = 254), we find support for this claim and report the novel discovery that older adults’ increased attribution of negligence, in turn, is associated with a higher perceived likelihood that the accident would occur. We (...) propose that, because older adults perceive accidents as more likely than younger adults do, they condemn the agents and their actions more and even infer that the agents’ omission to exercise due care is intentional. These findings refine our understanding of the cognitive processes underpinning moral judgment in older adulthood and highlight the role of subjective probability judgments in negligence attribution. (shrink)

A way to make people save energy is by informing them that “comparable others” save more. We investigated whether one can further improve this nudge by manipulating Who the “comparable others” are. We asked participants to imagine receiving feedback stating that their energy consumption exceeded that of “comparable others” by 10%. We varied Who the “comparable others” were in a 2 × 2 design: they were a household that was located either in the same neighborhood as themselves or in a (...) different neighborhood, and its members were either identified (by names and a photograph) or unidentified. We also included two control conditions: one where no feedback was provided, and one where only statistical feedback was provided (feedback about an average household). We found that it matters Who the “comparable others” are. The most effective feedback was when the referent household was from the same neighborhood as the individual’s and its members were not identified. (shrink)

This study investigated the associations between academic dishonesty, perceptions toward cheating and academic self-handicapping in 572 Greek University students using an online anonymous questionnaire. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was employed to form subgroups of students based on academic dishonesty – related constructs. The results showed that academic dishonesty was higher in males and among Sciences and Economics/ICT majors, and that it was associated with students’ perceptions and a pattern of dysfunctional academic behavior. Moreover, students majoring in Science and Economics/ICT reported (...) higher levels of witnessing a peer cheating, which was positively linked to academic dishonesty. LPA revealed three groups of students with low, medium, and high academic dishonesty-related variable scores. The implications of these findings for understanding how perceptions about cheating and academic self-handicapping are linked to academic dishonesty are discussed. The study also suggests some possible interventions to prevent and reduce academic dishonesty based on the emerged student profiles. (shrink)

Consumer skepticism of corporate environmental activities is on the rise. Yet research on this timely, intriguing, and important topic is scarce for both academics and practitioners. Building on attribution theory, we develop and test a theoretically anchored model that explains the sources and consequences of green skepticism. The study findings reveal that consumers’ perceptions of industry norms, corporate social responsibility, and corporate history are important factors that explain why consumers assign different motives to corporate environmental actions. In addition, the results (...) show that while intrinsic motives exert a strong negative effect on green skepticism, extrinsic motives have no discernible effect. Furthermore, the findings indicate that green skepticism prompts consumers to seek more information about the products, sparks negative word of mouth to friends and acquaintances, and forestalls purchase intentions. The study offers several implications for corporate and public policy makers and presents fruitful research directions. (shrink)

In what follows, I examine the views of Metropolitan Amfilohije’s views on St Gregory Palamas and Orthodoxy, primarily focusing on his PhD thesis, which was defended at the University of Athens, Faculty of Theology in 1973, and published in Thessaloniki in the same year. I claim that his views there not only show him defending Palamas, but also highlight the need for a strengthening of Palamism in Greece and abroad. Some of the problems, which he identified in 1973, exist in (...) Orthodoxy today and his suggestion that all contemporary Orthodox intellectuals should persist in the Philosophy and Theology of Palamism seems to be the only way to solve these problems, even today. (shrink)

Emotions shape judgments and decisions, including actions in response to climate change. Despite growing interest in the cognitive, social, and political determinants of climate (in)action, the role of emotions has received limited attention. This review discusses the role of hope in climate action. While many emotional states are oriented to the past or present, hope offers a positive vision of the future. In exploratory analyses of a nationally representative survey of US residents, we identify the most important predictors of hope, (...) climate action, and policy support from a large set of potential variables. We find suggestive evidence that hope, a construct comprised of cognitive, emotional, and contextual factors, is an important motivator of future-oriented action. (shrink)

Die vorliegende Sammlung von Aufsätzen einiger der weltbesten Spezialisten der antiken griechischen Philosophie konzentriert sich auf die philosophischen Texte, die während der hellenistischen und kaiserlichen Zeit Pythagoras und den Pythagoreern zugeschrieben wurden. Ihre unbekannten Verfasser behaupten, die Positionen der ursprünglichen pythagoreischen Schule zur Metaphysik, Theologie, Zahlenphilosophie, Physik, Logik, politischen Philosophie, Ethik und zur richtigen Lebensweise zu vermitteln. Die kühnsten unter ihnen präsentieren sich als die Quellen, aus denen Platon und Aristoteles die Inspiration für den Timaios und die Kategorien geschöpft haben. (...) Da sie von den meisten antiken Denkern als maßgebend angesehen wurden, führte dies zu einer Renaissance der platonischen und pythagoreischen Tradition. (shrink)

In 2008 the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act amendments made deliberately choosing to bring disability into the world, using assisted reproduction, a criminal offence. This paper considers whether the legal prohibition above, should influence other policy areas concerning the welfare of future children such as new possibilities presented by foetal surgery and in utero gene therapy. If we have legal duties to avoid disability in one context should this influence our avoidance of disability in this other context? This paper investigates (...) whether the State might have a stake in wider promotion of practices to reduce the degree of disability in foetuses that will come to exist. Not selecting for disability does not affect the welfare of any future individual, whereas treating in utero abnormalities can optimize the eventual child’s welfare; antenatal interventions stand to improve clinical outcomes and welfare should that specific child be born. I explore why the State may want to intervene in the antenatal setting and to what extent, if at all; the State should implement these technologies. I argue that if the State is justified in intervening to outlaw the choosing to create disabled lives using assisted reproductive techniques, it is also justified in putting pressure on prospective parents to accept therapies in utero to help their child be born less disabled. However, I qualify this with the argument that the State is not justified in using force or the criminal law in this situation during pregnancy. (shrink)

Volume 26, Issue 2, June 2019, Page 171-175.

This paper gives an account of the debate between F.A. Hayek and J.M. Keynes in the 1930s written for the general public. The purpose of this is twofold. First, to provide the general reader with a narrative of what happened, … More ›.

Unlike many dominant images of thought that are centered on searching for foundations whose coherence is found in binary logics or biunivocal relations, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s philosophy constitutes a way of thinking through machines that produce pure multiplicities by virtue of intensive differences. What is important with regards to machines is to refrain from any attempt at defining or understanding them—they cannot be delimited and are a-signifying—and to try to make them work, such that various flows of thought (...) may circulate through them, intermingling with and interrupting each other. Even though any machine groups together many heterogeneous elements, literary machines are interesting insofar as they can reach a level of the fragmentary whereby the determinant potency of intensive differences can be expressed. This article experiments with Maurice Blanchot’s literary machine—especially with his idea of the neuter—to discover operations that could help to dismantle the foundations of dominant images of thought. (shrink)

For the first time, the reader can have a synoptic view of the reception of Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, East and West, in a multicultural perspective. All the major themes of Pythagoreanism are addressed, from mathematics, number philosophy and metaphysics to ethics and religious thought.

Definida como beleza lógica e forma do paradoxo, a ironia romântica de Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829) assimila a antiga ironia socrática e a reinterpreta, inserindo-a como elemento central de sua teorização crítico-literária. O presente artigo analisa a ironia romântica, buscando situar sua alteração e abrangência no final do século XVIII, quando o conceito passa a significar metacrítica, reflexão filosófica, ruptura ficcional, distância estética e forma de exposição da arte literária. Defined as logical beauty and form of paradox, Friedrich Schlegel's (1772-1829) romantic (...) irony incorporates ancient Socratic irony and reinterprets it, inserting it as a nuclear element of his theorization on literary criticism. The current paper analyses the concept of romantic irony seeking to situate its alterations at the end of 18th century, when it changed its meaning for metacritics, philosophical reflexion, fictional rupture, aesthetical distance and form of art exposition. (shrink)

This chapter examines aspects of the Pythagorean tradition from the perspective of “spiritual guidance”. The only traces that remain of the initial period of Pythagoreanism are the acousmata and a handful of authentic fragments of Philolaus of Croton. The chapter focuses on the Golden Verses, a short poem dating back to the Hellenistic period that constitutes the most complete and impressive illustration of spiritual guidance in a Pythagorean milieu. The chapter analyzes that despite the chronological distance that separates the Golden (...) Verses from the acousmata, what is at issue in both cases is the practice of the Pythagorean way of life, that gives guidance all its meaning. What emerges from the testimonies dealing with the Pythagoreans is that their way of life was practiced in a community, or the Pythagorean society or sect. (shrink)

In this paper I plan to draw on Reiner Schürmann’s book Broken Hegemonies posthumously published, in 1996, after his death. I shall examine the role that Schürmann attributes to tragic denial of the law for the generation of law in general. Schürmann’s model for tragic denial is the Greek tragedy. In many instances, besides the study under consideration, Schürmann finds recourse to Agamemnon, Oedipus, Antigone and other tragic heroes in order to delineate the hero’s mortal dilemma in front of two (...) intersecting and conflicting laws. In front of the tragic scission the hero is obliged to select without avoid­ing committing hubris and to a certain extent blindly and not after rational or moral deliberation. Agamemnon’s destitution of paternal duty makes him a sovereign leader of the Hellenic fleet. The story is used by Schürmann in order to model the function of all laws. Combining the late Ludwig Wittgenstein and Jean Francois Lyotard, Schürmann defines the situation of conflicting laws as a contradiction or a differend out of which the law emerges as such. Schürmann employs the same model to phenomenologically explain the emergence of all ultimate foundations of experience: he apparently uses his own precept to read Heidegger from the end towards the beginning and thus employs Heidegger’s term Ereignis, appropriation, as the original strategy of being, controlling its appearance and withdrawal in terms of ultimate foundations. Schürmann refers to hegemonic phantasms in order to describe the transmutations by which a referent is declared sovereign by philosophers. Such transmutations depend upon but also describe our tragic condition, namely that always one but in contrast to itself being which we confusedly summon and fantasize upon. Drawing from a close reading of some of Schurmann’s seminal texts, I shall characterize Schürmann’s thinking as immanent and will inquire in the role of singulars therein. (shrink)

This paper concerns Jacques Derrida's reading of S0ren Kierkegaard's interpretation of the biblical story of Abraham's sacrifice. Abraham's decision to listen to God's command and sacrifice to Him his beloved son is based on his personal faith which conflicts with general morality. On the basis of this story, Derrida argues that we often witness similar conflicts between religion and morality, demonstrating that responsibility is ultimately based on something irresponsible, i.e. something secret. The paper finally discusses Derrida's logic of ultimates.

This paper concerns Jacques Derrida's reading of S0ren Kierkegaard's interpretation of the biblical story of Abraham's sacrifice. Abraham's decision to listen to God's command and sacrifice to Him his beloved son is based on his personal faith which conflicts with general morality. On the basis of this story, Derrida argues that we often witness similar conflicts between religion and morality, demonstrating that responsibility is ultimately based on something irresponsible, i.e. something secret. The paper finally discusses Derrida's logic of ultimates.

Les résultats de l'étude du mur de Conon sur l'Akté, au Pirée, et de l'examen de ses différentes phases architecturales ont été étendus aux projectiles en pierre d'époque hellénistique recueillis en différents points des fortifications du Pirée. On fait des observations nouvelles sur la poliorcétique antique et plus particulièrement sur la fabrication de projectiles en pierre, taillés dans des colonnettes que l'assaillant ramassait dans les cimetières à l'extérieur des murs. Pour tenter une chronologie plus précise des boulets, on a étudié (...) leur poids du point de vue de la métrologie et avancé des hypothèses sur l'utilisation de la mine et de la livre dans les machines de guerre. (shrink)

Brute facts are facts that don't have explanations. They are instrumental in our attempts to give accounts of other facts or phenomena, and so they play a key role in many philosophers' views about the structure of the world. This volume explores neglected questions about the nature of brute facts and their explanatory role.

The scholarly contributions gathered together in this volume discuss themes related to the cultural, social and ethical dimension of St Gregory Palamas’ works. They relate his mystical philosophy and theology to contemporary debates in metaphysics, philosophy of language, ethics, philosophy of culture, political philosophy, epistemology, and philosophy of religion and theology, among others. The book considers a variety of topics of special interest to Christian theologians, philosophers and art historians including church and state relations, similarities and differences between Palamas, contemporary (...) phenomenologists and philosophers of language, and hesychast influences on late Byzantine iconography. (shrink)

The 13th and 14th centuries represented the most productive and influential period in the history of philosophy and theology in the West. A parallel and less influential (for the West) proliferation of arguments and theories took place in the East, at the same time, as a result of the defence of the Hesychastic movement offered by St Gregory Palamas and his followers. The papers brought together in this volume discuss the importance of Palamite ideas for the understanding of God in (...) terms of divine energies, and for contemporary approaches to solving perennial problems in science, metaphysics, aesthetics, and ethics. Some of the contributors take a more reserved evaluation of the Palamite corpus, preferring to highlight similarities and differences between Palamas and the chief representatives of Medieval Scholasticism, such as Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus and Ockham. Other essays offer a radical re-evaluation of the Western history of philosophy and theology, preferring to bring out the reasons for Western philosophical and theological shortcomings and providing a wider critique on Western culture. Contributors to this volume include some of the top scholars on Palamite studies from the fields of philosophy, theology, aesthetics, cultural criticism, and art theory. As such, it represents a particularly useful resource for advanced undergraduate students, postgraduate students and researchers in Christian theology and philosophy, Byzantine cultural studies and aesthetics. (shrink)

Resumo No que se segue, discuto o que eu quero dizer com Misticismo Ortodoxo em Filosofia e Teologia, com referências específicas a Pseudo-Dionísio, o Areopagita; São Simeão, o Novo Teólogo e São Nicolau Cabasilas. Depois abordarei o que considero ser a meta da Mística Ortodoxa em Filosofia e Teologia, ou seja, o rapto ecstático e a união com o Deus Uno e Trino por meio da glorificação ou deificação. A minha investigação vai terminar com uma análise acerca da diferença entre (...) a abordagem de Deus Uno e Trino na Mística Ortodoxa da abordagem Católica Romana de Deus percebido como ‘Esse de ipsum subsistens’ juntamente com as duas formas diferentes de misticismo que estas percepções de Deus implicam. Palavras-chave : intelectualismo esotérico, Misticismo Ortodoxo, nuvem do não saber, ontologia, proporcionalidade doxástica, sinergiaIn what follows, I discuss what I mean by Orthodox Mysticism in Philosophy and Theology with specific reference to Ps. Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Symeon the New Theologian and St. Nicholaos Cabasilas. I then discuss what I take to be the goal of the Orthodox mystic in Philosophy and Theology, i.e., ecstatic rapture and union with the Triune God through glorification or deification. My investigation will finish with an examination of how the Orthodox mystical approach to the Triune God differs from the Roman-Catholic approach to God perceived as ‘Esse ipsum subsistens’ and the two different forms of mysticism that these two perceptions of God imply. Keywords : cloud of non-knowledge, doxastic proportionality, esoteric intellectualism, ontology, Orthodox Mysticism, synergos. (shrink)