Many philosophers and neuroscientists defend a view we express with the slogan that mental science is neuroscience. We argue that there are two ways of interpreting this view, depending on what is meant by ‘neuroscience’. On one interpretation, the view is that mental science is cognitive neuroscience, where this is the science that integrates psychology with the biology of the brain. On another interpretation, the view is that mental science is biological neuroscience, where this is the investigation concerned with the (...) chemistry, physiology and anatomy of neurons and neuronal assemblies. Since the claim about cognitive neuroscience is a scientific triviality, we concentrate on the claim about biological neuroscience, and criticise two initially promising lines of argument for it, one prompted by reflection on the history of biology, and one prompted by reflection on the neurophysiological process known as long‐term potentiation, which may be implicated in learning. We argue that neither of these arguments is successful in supporting the view that mental science is biological neuroscience. (shrink)

It is widely held that a successful theory of the mind will be neuroscientific. In this paper we ask, first, what this claim means, and, secondly, whether it is true. In answer to the first question, we argue that the claim is ambiguous between two views--one plausible but unsubstantive, and one substantive but highly controversial. In answer to the second question, we argue that neither the evidence from neuroscience itself nor from other scientific and philosophical considerations supports the controversial view.

The rejection of behaviorism in the 1950s and 1960s led to the view, due mainly to Noam Chomsky, that language must be studied by looking at the mind and not just at behavior. It is an understatement to say that Chomskyan linguistics dominates the field. Despite being the overwhelming majority view, it has not gone unchallenged, and the challenges have focused on different aspects of the theory. What is almost universally accepted, however, is Chomsky’s view that understanding language demands a (...) theory that posits mental states that represent rules of language. Call this claim, following Cowie (1999), Representationalism or (R). According to (R), ‘‘[e]xplaining language mastery and acquisition requires the postulation of contentful mental states and processes involving their manipulation’’ (Cowie, 1999, p. 154). Although (R) is nothing more than the general assumption on which cognitive psychology is founded applied to the case of language, even it has had its detractors. Critics have argued that linguistic competence should not in fact be thought of as based on the possession of a body of linguistic knowledge but should be thought of, rather, as a kind of skill. This is an important challenge because one might be inclined to think that no recognizable form of Chomskyan linguistics could withstand the falsification of (R). In this paper we attempt to show that in fact (R) could be false without doing much damage to Chomskyan linguistics at all. Indeed, it is possible that the Chomskyan position could be made more coherent by adopting the view we will sketch. Our claim, therefore, is that critics of (R) might be right, but that this does not obviously make them serious critics of the Chomskyan program. (shrink)

The theory of rationality has traditionally been concerned with the investigation of the norms of rational thought and behaviour, and with the reasoning pro‐cedures that satisfy them. As a consequence, the investigation of irrationality has largely been restricted to the behaviour or thought that violates these norms. There are, how‐ever, other forms of irrationality. Here we propose that the delusions that occur in schizophrenia constitute a paradigm of irrationality. We examine a leading theory of schizophrenic delusion and propose that some (...) delusions can be traced to a violation of a condition on thought we call egocentricity. We argue that the violation of egocen‐tricity leads to irrational states that cannot be explained by the traditional categories of irrationality and conclude, therefore, that these states belong in a new branch of the theory of irrationality, that of experiential irrationality. (shrink)

Software plays an important role in contemporary research. Aside from its use for administering traditional instruments like surveys and in data analysis, the widespread use of mobile and web apps for social, medical and lifestyle engagement has led to software becoming a research intervention in its own right. For example, it is not unusual to find apps being studied for their utility as interventions in health and social life. Since the software may persist in use beyond the life of an (...) investigation, this raises questions as to the extent of ethical duties for researchers involved in its production and/or study towards the participants involved. Key factors identified include the extent of affect created by the software, the effect it has on a participant’s life, the length of investigation, cost of maintenance and participant agency. In this article we discuss the issues raised in such situations, considering them in the context of post-research duties of care and suggesting strategies to balance the burden on researchers with the need for ongoing participant support. (shrink)

Pylyshyn rightly argues that the neuroscientific data supporting the involvement of the visual system in mental imagery is largely irrelevant to the question of the format of imagistic representation. The purpose of this commentary is to support this claim with a further argument.

This paper addresses one aspect of the natural law theory of Germain Grisez. According to Grisez, practical reason identifies the goods of human life prior to the invocation of any moral or normative notions. It can thus provide a non-normative foundation for moral theory. I present Grisez’s position and argue that the apparently non-normative aspect of natural law cannot support the moral position built upon it. I argue, in particular, that practical principles, as Grisez understands them, are best understood as (...) speech acts. If this is correct, it is possible to develop a sceptical challenge to Grisez’s position. (shrink)

Although a wide variety of questions were raised about different aspects of the target article, most of them fall into one of five categories each of which deals with a general question. These questions are Is the radical neuron doctrine really radical? Is the trivial neuron doctrine really trivial? Were we sufficiently critical of the radical neuron doctrine? Is there a distinction to be drawn at all between the two doctrines? and How does our argument bear on related issues in (...) the ontology of mind? Our replies to the objections and observations presented are organized around these five questions. (shrink)

Ross argues that the location problem for color-the problem of how it is represented as occupying a particular location in space-constitutes an objection to color subjectivism. There are two ways in which the location problem can be interpreted. First, it can be read as a why-question about the relation of visual experience to the environment represented: Why does visual experience represent a patch of color as located in this part of space rather than that? On this interpretation, the subjectivist can (...) answer Ross's objection by appealing to the physical location of reflectance rather than color. Second, it can be read as a how-question about visual representation itself: How does visual experience put together the experience of a color with the experience of its being located in space? This version makes the location problem a problem about visual experience itself and renders the ontology of color irrelevant to its solution. The location problem is thus no more a problem for the color subjectivist than for the color realist. (shrink)

It is argued that color constancy is only one of the benefits of color vision and probably not the most important one. Attention to a different benefit, chromatic contrast, suggests that the features of the environment that played a role in the evolution of color vision are properties of particular ecological niches rather than properties of naturally-occurring illumination. [Shepard].

Many philosophers and neuroscientists defend a view we express with the slogan that mental science is neuroscience. We argue that there are two ways of interpreting this view, depending on what is meant by ‘neuroscience’. On one interpretation, the view is that mental science is cognitive neuroscience, where this is the science that integrates psychology with the biology of the brain. On another interpretation, the view is that mental science is biological neuroscience, where this is the investigation concerned with the (...) chemistry, physiology and anatomy of neurons and neuronal assemblies. Since the claim about cognitive neuroscience is a scientific triviality, we concentrate on the claim about biological neuroscience, and criticise two initially promising lines of argument for it, one prompted by reflection on the history of biology, and one prompted by reflection on the neurophysiological process known as long‐term potentiation, which may be implicated in learning. We argue that neither of these arguments is successful in supporting the view that mental science is biological neuroscience. (shrink)

Introduction. There is substantial evidence that patients with delusions exhibit a reasoning bias—known as the “jumping to conclusions” bias—which leads them to accept hypotheses as correct on the basis of less evidence than controls. We address three questions concerning the JTC bias that require clarification. Firstly, what is the best measure of the JTC bias? Second, is the JTC bias correlated specifically with delusions, or only with the symptomatology of schizophrenia? And third, is the bias enhanced by emotionally salient material? (...) Methods. To address these questions, we conducted a series of meta-analyses of studies that used the Beads task to compare the probabilistic reasoning styles of individuals with and without delusions. Results. We found that only one of four measures of the JTC bias—“draws to decision”—reached significance. The JTC bias exhibited by delusional subjects—as measured by draws to decision—did not appear to be solely an epiphenomenal effect of schizophrenic symptomatology, and was not amplified by emotionally salient material. Conclusions. A tendency to gather less evidence in the Beads task is reliably associated with the presence of delusional symptomatology. In contrast, certainty on the task, and responses to contradictory evidence, do not discriminate well between those with and without delusions. The implications for the underlying basis of the JTC bias, and its role in the formation and maintenance of delusions, are discussed. (shrink)

Britain's abandonment of the Gold Standard in 1931 raised new economic policy problems both for Britain and for the countries of the Empire, who had to decide whether to follow sterling off gold and, if so, whether to peg their currencies to sterling. By exploiting archival material, the author casts fresh light on the debates and financial diplomacy of the period, and provides a fuller understanding of several key issues: the formation of the sterling area, the World Economic (...) Conference of 1933, and American concerns about the price and course of sterling. (shrink)

Francis Crick has identified a doctrine‐the neuron doctrine‐which he apparently regards as both true and astonishing. I begin by carefully articulating Crick’s doctrine, arguing that whilst plausible it is certainly not astonishing. I then consider a related doctrine, the biological neuroscience thesis (BNT). According to BNT, mental science is biological neuroscience, where biological neuroscience is pretty much exhausted by neuroanatomy, neurophysiology and neurochemistry. Stoljar and Gold argue that BNT is unsupported by current scientific developments. I argue that well‐established results (...) in the cognitive sciences show that it is false. (shrink)

Tradition has it that, although we experience darkness, we can neither hear nor hallucinate silence. At most, we hear that it is silent, in virtue of lacking auditory experience. This cognitive view is at odds with our ordinary thought and talk. Yet it is not easy to vouchsafe the perception of silence: Sorensen‘s recent account entails the implausible claim that the permanently and profoundly deaf are perpetually hallucinating silence. To better defend the view that we can genuinely hear and hallucinate (...) silence, we must reject the austere picture of conscious experience which underpins the cognitive theory. According to that picture, conscious experience is a simple relation between subjects and objects. In the absence of an object, there is no relation, and so no experience. By enriching this picture, room can be found for the experience of silence. I explore this idea in two phases. First, I defend the thought that we can hear and hallucinate certain forms of silence, such as pauses, in virtue of experiencing contrastive sounds. Second, I draw on Moore‘s analysis of sensation to suggest that simply experiencing silence is a special form of objectless consciousness. I offer two ways of fleshing out this idea. According to the first, auditory experience possesses a temporal field within which the absence of sounds can be perceived. According to the second, purely Moorean account, it is our capacity to listen in the absence of sounds that underlies the phenomenon of experiencing silence. (shrink)

Plato of Athens, who laid the foundations of the Western philosophical tradition and in range and depth ranks among its greatest practitioners, was born to a prosperous and politically active family circa 427 BC. In early life an admirer of Socrates, Plato later founded the first institution of higher learning in the West, the Academy, among whose many notable alumni was Aristotle. Traditionally ascribed to Plato are thirty-five dialogues developing Socrates' dialectic method and composed with great stylistic virtuosity, together with (...) the Apology and thirteen letters. The four works in this volume recount the circumstances of Socrates' trial and execution in 399 BC. In Euthyphro, set in the weeks before the trial, Socrates and Euthyphro attempt to define holiness. In Apology, Socrates answers his accusers at trial and unapologetically defends his philosophical career. In Crito, a discussion of justice and injustice explains Socrates' refusal of Crito's offer to finance his escape from prison. And in Phaedo, Socrates discusses the concept of an afterlife and offers arguments for the immortality of the soul. This edition, which replaces the original Loeb edition by Harold North Fowler, offers text, translation, and annotation that are fully current with modern scholarship." -- Publisher's description. (shrink)

I offer an account of the virtue of intellectual humility, construed as a pair of dispositions enabling proper management of one's intellectual confidence. I then show its integral role in a range of familiar educational practices and concerns, and finally describe how certain entrenched educational attitudes and conceptions marginalise or militate against the cultivation and exercise of this virtue.

The Indian Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu is known for his critical contribution to Buddhist Abhidharma thought, his turn to the Mahayana tradition, and his concise, influential Yogacara-Vijñanavada texts. _Paving the Great Way_ reveals another dimension of his legacy: his integration of several seemingly incompatible intellectual and scriptural traditions, with far-ranging consequences for the development of Buddhist epistemology and the theorization of tantra. Most scholars read Vasubandhu's texts in isolation and separate his intellectual development into distinct phases. Featuring close studies of Vasubandhu's (...) _Abhidharmakosabhasya_, _Vyakhyayukti_, _Vimsatika_, and _Trisvabhavanirdesa_, among other works, this book identifies recurrent treatments of causality and scriptural interpretation that unify distinct strands of thought under a single, coherent Buddhist philosophy. In Vasubandhu's hands, the Buddha's rejection of the self as a false construction provides a framework through which to clarify problematic philosophical issues, such as the nature of moral agency and subjectivity under a broadly causal worldview. Recognizing this continuity of purpose across Vasubandhu's diverse corpus recasts the interests of the philosopher and his truly innovative vision, which influenced Buddhist thought for a millennium and continues to resonate with today's philosophical issues. An appendix includes extensive English-language translations of the major texts discussed. (shrink)

Although critics often argue that the new atheists are arrogant, dogmatic, closed-minded and so on, there is currently no philosophical analysis of this complaint - which I will call 'the vice charge' - and no assessment of whether it is merely a rhetorical aside or a substantive objection in its own right. This Chapter therefore uses the resources of virtue epistemology to articulate this ' vice charge' and to argue that critics are right to imply that new atheism is intrinsically (...) epistemically vicious, and it ends with some remarks about the rationality of allowing such intrinsically vicious doctrines to feature within public debate about important matters concerning science, religion, and politics. (shrink)

It is very well known that from the late-1960s onwards Feyerabend began to radically challenge some deeply-held ideas about the history and methodology of the sciences. It is equally well known that, from around the same period, he also began to radically challenge wider claims about the value and place of the sciences within modern societies, for instance by calling for the separation of science and the state and by questioning the idea that the sciences served to liberate and ameliorate (...) human societies. But what is less known is how, if at all, these two sets of challenges were connected, and why Feyerabend felt it important to raise them at all. In this chapter, my aim is to explore these issues by considering why Feyerabend used radical strategies to challenge the authority of science, and what purpose, if any, they were supposed to serve. Why, for instance, did Feyerabend defend alternative medicine, psychical abilities, astrology, magic and witchcraft and why did he argue that ‘Western science’ is complicit in environmental destruction, intellectual imperialism, social oppression, and spiritual destitution. Located in their historical and political context, such defences and arguments seem peculiar, not least because science was recognised not only as a central site of the intellectual and ideological competition between the West and the Soviet Union, but also because Western victory in that site was considered inevitable. What, then, did Feyerabend think he was trying to achieve by raising radical challenges to a central component of the cultural and intellectual prestige of the Western world grounded in appeals to practices and traditions which most would regard as eccentric at best and absurd at worst? My suggestion is that Feyerabend was making a subtler point than one might suppose. For the purpose of these radical challenges was to determine if the members of Western societies would in fact honour the epistemic standards – of tolerance, critical enquiry – which were identified as being characteristic of science and definitive of the social and political values of Western liberal democracy. I suggest that Feyerabend was trying to demonstrate that scientists were, too often, guilty of the same intolerant and dogmatic attitudes which were, according to prevailing propaganda, the property of illiberal totalitarian societies. Science does not reflect the superior epistemic and political values of Western societies but are, in fact, reflective of the same vices ascribed to the Soviet Union. If that is the case, then the sciences are not symbols of our epistemic and political values, but quite the reverse, hence Feyerabend’s talk of the ‘dogmatic’, ‘totalitarian’, ‘ratiofascist’ nature of modern science. But there is a positive upshot to Feyerabend’s challenge. For even if the sciences do not yet reflect the epistemic and political values of liberal democratic Western societies, they might yet be reformed so that they are. And there is a parallel between Feyerabend’s strategy and that of many of the other radicals of the time – student activists, environmentalists, and pacifists – namely to test the commitment to tolerance and deliberative debate of the establishment by asking it to seriously engage with ideas and convictions opposed to its own. For both science and society can become ‘tyrannical’ through the same means: by exempting themselves from critical scrutiny, by promoting self-serving ‘myths’ about themselves, and by derogating and excluding alternatives, including the ‘outsider’ perspectives they offer. The chapter concludes by suggesting that Feyerabend is distinctive in virtue of his willingness to offer radical criticisms of the authority of science such that it can fulfil its legitimate ideological role – namely, of symbolising and instantiating our core epistemic and political values – such that we can offer a sincere and meaningful answer to Feyerabend’s question ‘what’s so great about science?’. (shrink)

Philosophers have lately seized upon Sperling's partial report technique and subsequent work on iconic memory in support of controversial claims about perceptual experience, in particular that phenomenology overflows cognitive access. Drawing on mounting evidence concerning postdictive perception, I offer an interpretation of Sperling's data in terms of cue-sensitive experience which fails to support any such claims. Arguments for overflow based on change-detection paradigms (e.g. Landman et al., 2003; Sligte et al., 2008) cannot be blocked in this way. However, such paradigms (...) are fundamentally different from Sperling's and, for rather different reasons, equally fail to establish controversial claims about perceptual experience. (shrink)

Reading W.K. Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief” in evidentialist terms is standard. However, evidentialist accounts face several longstanding interpretive issues over the Shipowner Story and Clifford’s Motto. This article defends an evidentialist reading. But what distinguishes it from others is that it interprets “The Ethics of Belief” according to Clifford’s “first principle of natural ethics”, a principle he articulates in prior writings, and which comes down to social trust. I reorient Clifford’s evidentialism by returning to his core moral principle and (...) argue that doing so can establish coherence across Clifford’s writings on ethics and can help resolve the relevant interpretive issues. (shrink)

How should we deal with apparent causation involving events that have not happened when omissions are cited as causes or when something is said to prevent some event? Phil Dowe claims that causal statements about preventions and omissions are ‘quasi-causal' claims about what would have been a cause, if the omitted event had happened or been caused if the prevention had not occurred. However, one important theory of the logic of causal statements – Donald Davidson's – allows us to take (...) causal statements about omissions and preventions as direct causal statements about events that are counterfactually described. This analysis provides a basis for solving a number of puzzles about ‘negative' events. Any ‘intuition' of difference between causal statements employing such descriptions and others employing positive descriptions of events is also explained. With omissions, where this intuition has some basis, it is shown that nevertheless omissions do really cause outcomes. (shrink)

I argue that we can profitably understanding Feyerabend’s work in at least the latter half of his career in terms of a series of experiments with ways of conceptualising and criticising scientism, under the aegis of a ‘critique of scientific reason’. The critique of science’s self-understanding was the more sophisticated and successful, while the critique of scientific modernity was more erratic and less effective, due mainly to the failure to take up the necessary resources.

A collection of answers to the philosophical questions on people's minds-from the big to the personal to the ones you didn't know you needed answered. Based on real-life questions from his Ask a Philosopher series, Ian Olasov offers his answers to questions such as: - Are people innately good or bad? - Is it okay to have a pet fish? - Is it okay to have kids? - Is color subjective? - If humans colonize Mars, who will own the land? (...) - Is ketchup a smoothie? - Is there life after death? - Should I give money to homeless people? Ask a Philosopher shows that there's a way of making philosophy work for each of us, and that philosophy can be both perfectly continuous with everyday life, and also utterly transporting. From questions that we all wrestle with in private to questions that you never thought to ask, Ask a Philosopher will get you thinking. (shrink)

This outstanding reference source to epistemic injustice is the first collection of its kind. Over thirty chapters address topics such as testimonial and hermeneutic injustice and virtue epistemology, objectivity and objectification, implicit bias, gender and race.

What do we mean when we talk of an 'assemblage' in contemporary theory? Any and every thing, or more precisely, any and every kind of collection of things, could now be called an assemblage. The constant and seemingly limitless expansion of the term's range of applications begs the question, if any and every kind of collection of things is an assemblage, then what advantage is there is in using this term and not some other term, or indeed no term at (...) all? What makes an assemblage an assemblage, and not some other kind of collection of things? This book advances beyond this impasse and offers practical help in thinking about and using assemblage theory for contemporary cultural and social research, in order to: - Answer the question: what is assemblage theory? - Explain why assemblage theory is necessary - Provide clear instructions on how to use assemblage theory The first book of it's kind, Ian Buchanan's guide maps the beginnings of a brand new field within the humanities. (shrink)

Ian Normile begins this study from the premise that critical thinking is often conceptualized and practiced in problematically narrow and instrumentalized ways. Following Ronald Barnett, he suggests that the idea of critical being can help expand the theory and practice of critical thinking to better meet the needs of education and society. Essential to this effort is greater consideration of how critical thinking articulates with other aspects of being. Normile uses two examples of “non-critical” experiences that he argues can help (...) critical thinking expand into critical being. First, he explores the emotive power of wonder as a source of inspiration and emotional education, and as an essential aspect of critical thinking. He then argues that curiosity, wonder, contemplation, and critical thinking are complementary aspects of critical being. The second example is the Chinese concept of wu-wei, a form of efficacious non-critical action. Normile argues that inevitable breakdowns in wu-wei provide opportunities for critical reflection while the unlearning common to both wonder and wu-wei facilitates receptivity to new perspectives and possibilities beyond the boundaries of the familiar; in this state, one is capable of facilitating the metacritique that is essential to truly transformative critical thinking. Normile concludes with some brief thoughts on implications for practice as a starting point for further inquiry. (shrink)

Gerald Cohen's critique of John Rawls's theory of justice is that it is concerned only with the justice of social institutions, and must thus arbitrarily draw a line between those inequalities excluded and those allowed by the basic structure. Cohen claims that a proper concern with the interests of the least advantaged would rule out 'incentives' for 'talented' individuals. I argue that Rawls's assumption that the subject of justice is the basic structure of society does not arbitrarily restrict the concerns (...) of political justice, as Cohen claims. Further, I argue that it does not allow 'deep' inequalities within a just basic structure. When properly understood, Rawls's theory of justice is strongly egalitarian, taken as a theory of fairness in the way the burdens and benefits of social cooperation are distributed, even if it is not as egalitarian as Cohen wishes. (shrink)

In his book The Things We Mean, Stephen Schiffer advances a subtle defence of what he calls the ‘face-value’ analysis of attributions of belief and reports of speech. Under this analysis, ‘Harold believes that there is life on Venus’ expresses a relation between Harold and a certain abstract object, the proposition that there is life on Venus. The present essay first proposes an improvement to Schiffer’s ‘pleonastic’ theory of propositions. It then challenges the face-value analysis. There will be such things (...) as propositions only if they possess conditions of identity and distinctness. By analyzing Frege’s theory of propositions (Gedanken), I argue that such conditions may be found for the special case of beliefs and sayings advanced as premises and conclusions of deductive arguments. These conditions, however, are not applicable to most ordinary beliefs and sayings. Ordinary attributions and reports, then, do not place thinkers and speakers in relations to propositions. A bonus is exposure of the fallacy in the Putnam-Taschek objection to Frege’s theory of sense and reference. (shrink)

The original comic version of T'Challa is a traditional monarch, whose actions demonstrate his concern for maintaining power and securing his nation. In fact, with his strategic use of violence, his demonstrations of empathy and humanity, and his embrace of religious symbolism, T'Challa was classically “Machiavellian” in the comics. "Panther's Rage" chronicles T'Challa's return to Wakanda after an extended stay in the United States as a costumed superhero, most notably with the Avengers. Machiavelli would approve of T'Challa's embrace of violence. (...) Machiavelli was keenly aware of how a ruler should be perceived by his subjects, suggesting that a successful ruler will appear to possess five key qualities that meet with the approval of his subjects: mercy, faith, honesty, humanity, and religion. T'Challa is never as cruel as some of Machiavelli's models, but he does preserve his divinely ordained kingdom by employing fear and religion to stay in power. (shrink)