The character of computational modelling of cognition depends on an underlying theory of representation. Classical cognitive science has exploited the syntax/semantics theory of representation that derives from logic. But this has had the consequence that the kind of psychological explanation supported by classical cognitive science is " _conceptualist_: " psychological phenomena are modelled in terms of relations that hold between concepts, and between the sensors/effectors and concepts. This kind of explanation is inappropriate for the Proper Treatment of Connectionism.

Much recent cognitive neuroscientific work on body knowledge is representationalist: “body schema” and “body images”, for example, are cerebral representations of the body (de Vignemont 2009). A framework assumption is that representation of the body plays an important role in cognition. The question is whether this representationalist assumption is compatible with the variety of broadly situated or embodied approaches recently popular in the cognitive neurosciences: approaches in which cognition is taken to have a ‘direct’ relation to the body and to (...) the environment. A “direct” relation is one where the boundaries between the body and the head, or between the environment and the animal are not theoretically important in the understanding of cognition. These boundaries do not play a theoretically privileged role in cognitive explanations of behavior. But representationalism appears to put a representational veil between the locus of cognition and that which is represented, making cognitive relations to the body and to the environment be indirect, with a high associated computational load. For this reason, direct approaches have tried to minimize the use of internal representations (Suchman 1987; Barwise 1987; Agre and Chapman 1987; Brooks 1992; Thelen and Smith 1994; van Gelder 1995; Port and van Gelder 1995; Clark 1997, 1999; Rupert 2009, p. 180). Does a cognitive neuroscience committed to direct relations rule out a representationalist approach to body knowledge? Or is direct representationalism possible? (shrink)

Tim Crane University College London 1. Introduction P.F. Strawson argued that ‘mature sensible experience (in general) presents itself as … an immediate consciousness of the existence of things outside us’ (1979: 97). He began his defence of this very natural idea by asking how someone might typically give a description of their current visual experience, and offered this example of such a description: ‘I see the red light of the setting sun filtering through the black and thickly clustered branches of (...) the elms; I see the dappled deer grazing in groups on the vivid green grass…’ (1979: 97). In other words, in describing experience, we tend to describe the objects of experience – the things which we experience – and the ways they are when we are experiencing them. (shrink)

In section 1 I offer a definition of psychologism which applies to many of the apparently quite disparate uses that philosophers have made of the term. In section 2 I map out some distinct varieties of psychologism. In a short section 3 I indicate how the changing academic climate has injected a new urgency into the debate on psychologism. In section 4 I offer an argument for a variety of psychologism which has important consequences for cognitive science, and in section (...) 5 I consider some objections to the argument. (shrink)

This paper explores some problems with Gareth Evans’s theory of the fundamental and non-fundamental levels of thought [1]. I suggest a way to reconceive the levels of thought that overcomes these problems. But, first, why might anyone who was not already struck by Evans’s remarkable theory care about these issues? What’s at stake here?

A growing body of empirical evidence suggests that folk knowledge attribution practices regarding some epistemological thought experiments differ significantly from the consensus found in the philosophical literature. More specifically, laypersons are likely to ascribe knowledge in the so-called Authentic Evidence Gettier-style cases, while most philosophers deny knowledge in these cases. The intuitions shared by philosophers are often used as evidence in favor (or against) certain philosophical analyses of the notion of knowledge. However, the fact that these intuitions are not universal, (...) as non-philosophers do not sympathize with verdicts made by philosophers, is problematic and requires some explanation. Recently, a promising theoretical approach emerged that could be used to explain away unexpected folk knowledge attributions. According to the protagonist projection hypothesis, when subjects answer questions about some hypothetical scenario, their judgments might result from adopting the cognitive perspective of the protagonist in the given scenario. Previous experimental findings suggest protagonist projection might be responsible for problematic knowledge attributions in Gettier-style cases. This paper reports data collected in an experiment which focused on five different Authentic Evidence Gettier-style scenarios and investigated the impact of protagonist projection on folk knowledge ascriptions in such cases. The results bring some support to the protagonist projection hypothesis, but do not allow to explain away a substantial number of problematic folk knowledge attributions. (shrink)

Francis Ysidro Edgeworth’s unduly neglected monograph New and Old Methods of Ethics (1877) advances a highly sophisticated and mathematized account of social well-being in the utilitarian tradition of his 19th-century contemporaries. This article illustrates how his usage of the ‘calculus of variations’ was combined with findings from empirical psychology and economic theory to construct a consequentialist axiological framework. A conclusion is drawn that Edgeworth is a methodological predecessor to several important methods, ideas, and issues that continue to be discussed in (...) contemporary social well-being studies. (shrink)

Since the early seventeenth century of Bacon, Gallileo and Descartes, the relations between science and religion as well as mind and body have remained volatile fault lines of conflict. The controversies surrounding these relations are as alive and pressing now as at any point over the course of the past four centuries. Adrian Johnston's transcendental materialism offers a new theoretical approach to these issues. Arming himself with resources provided by German idealism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, the life sciences and contemporary philosophical (...) developments, Johnston formulates an account of subjectivity that, although being both materialist and naturalist, does full justice to human beings as irreducible to natural matter alone. At the same time he argues against relapses into idealisms, dualisms and spiritualisms. Adventures in Transcendental Materialism elaborates Johnston's position through critical engagements with some of today's most important thinkers including Slavoj Žižek, Alain Badiou, Catherine Malabou, Jean-Claude Milner, Martin Hägglund, William Connolly, and Jane Bennett"--Back cover. (shrink)

The connections between forms of code and coding and the many crises that currently afflict the contemporary world run deep. Code and crisis in our time mutually define, and seemingly prolong, each other in ‘infinite branching graphs’ of decision problems. There is a growing academic literature that investigates digital code and software from a wide range of perspectives –power, subjectivity, governmentality, urban life, surveillance and control, biopolitics or neoliberal capitalism. The various strands in this literature are reflected in the papers (...) that comprise this special issue. They address topics ranging from social networks, mass media, financial markets and academic plagiarism to highway engineering in relation to the dynamics and diversity of crises. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this essay is to highlight and explore some of the underlying themes connecting codes and codings and the production and apprehension of ‘crisis’. We analyse how the ever-increasing intermediation of contemporary life by codes of various kinds has been closely shadowed by a proliferation of crises. We discuss three related aspects of the coupling of code and crisis (signification, performativity and excess) running across these seemingly diverse topics. We and the other contributors in this special issue seek to go beyond the restricted (and often restricting) understanding of code as the language of machines. Rather, we view code qua programs and algorithms as epitomizing a much broader phenomenon. The codes that we live, and that we live by, also tell us about the ways in which the ‘will to power’ and the 'will to knowledge' tend to be enacted in the contemporary world. (shrink)

Thought experiments play a role in science and in some central parts of contemporary philosophy. They used to play a larger role in philosophy of science, but have been largely abandoned as part of the field’s “practice turn”. This chapter discusses possible roles for thought experimentation within a practice-oriented philosophy of science. Some of these roles are uncontroversial, such as exemplification and aiding discovery. A more controversial role is the reliance on thought experiments to justify philosophical claims. It is proposed (...) that if we adopt an underlying empiricist view of concepts, then thought experiments can be seen as affording us contact with scientific practice, despite their seemingly a priori character. The advantages and drawbacks of thought experiments are discussed via comparison with case studies, on the one, and simulations on the other hand. The chapter closes with some remarks on how to combine thought experiments with other methods. (shrink)

Thought experiments play a role in science and in some central parts of contemporary philosophy. They used to play a larger role in philosophy of science, but have been largely abandoned as part of the field’s “practice turn”. This chapter discusses possible roles for thought experimentation within a practice-oriented philosophy of science. Some of these roles are uncontroversial, such as exemplification and aiding discovery. A more controversial role is the reliance on thought experiments to justify philosophical claims. It is proposed (...) that if we adopt an underlying empiricist view of concepts, then thought experiments can be seen as affording us contact with scientific practice, despite their seemingly a priori character. The advantages and drawbacks of thought experiments are discussed via comparison with case studies, on the one, and simulations on the other hand. The chapter closes with some remarks on how to combine thought experiments with other methods. (shrink)

John Scottus Eriugena (d. ca. 877) is regarded as the most important philosopher and theologian in the Latin West from the death of Boethius until the thirteenth century. He incorporated his understanding of Latin sources, Ambrose, Augustine, Boethius and Greek sources, including the Cappadocian Fathers, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Maximus Confessor, into a metaphysics structured on Aristotle's Categories, from which he developed Christian Neoplatonist theology that continues to stimulate 21st-century theologians. This collection of essays provides an overview of the latest scholarship on (...) various aspects of Eriugena's thought and writings, including his Irish background, his use of Greek theologians, his Scripture hermeneutics, his understanding of Aristotelian logic, Christology, and the impact he had on contemporary and later theological traditions. Contributors: David Albertson, Joel Barstad, John Contreni, Christophe Erismann, John Gavin, Adrian Guiu, Michael Harrington, Catherine Kavanagh, A. Kijewska, Stephen Lahey, Elena Lloyd-Sidle, Bernard McGinn, Ernesto Sergio Mainoldi, Dermot Moran, Giulio D'Onofrio, Willemien Otten, and Alfred Siewers. (shrink)

In this the second volume of his trilogy, Adrian Johnston delineates the philosophy of nature requisite for a properly materialist theory of irreducible autonomous subjectivity. Bringing to light a hitherto invisible undercurrent linking together Hegelian "Naturphilosophie," Marxian-Engelsian-Leninist dialectical materialism, Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalytic metapsychology, and today's approaches to metaphysics and the philosophy of science on both sides of the analytic-continental divide, he assembles an ontology that dramatically transfors our understandings of figures like Hegel, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Lukács, Freud, Lacan, Althusser, and (...) McDowell. In turn, this work looks to provide answer to the fundamental question: How must nature be conceptualized insofar as it happens to have eventuated in, and continues to contain the structures and dynamics peculiar to, full-fledged subjectivity? According to "A Weak Nature Alone," images of nature as akin to either a machine or organism in which each and every entity and event is governed by unbreakable causal laws preclude satisfying explanations of the emergence of human subjects with their spontaneous and self-determining capacities. Such explanations instead demand what Johnston as a "dialectical naturalism," namely, a materialism of a selfdenaturalizing nature radically altering itself in and through its human offspring. The transcendental materialism on display in "A Weak Nature Alone" is a systematic intervention that changes our senses of the philosophical past as well as the future while moving effortlessly within and between traditions and positions (Western and Soviet Marxisms, continental and analytic philosophy, etc.)"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

There remains no consensus among social scientists as to how to measure and understand forms of information deprivation such as misinformation. Machine learning and statistical analyses of information deprivation typically contain problematic operationalizations which are too often biased towards epistemic elites' conceptions that can undermine their empirical adequacy. A mature science of information deprivation should include considerable citizen involvement that is sensitive to the value-ladenness of information quality and that doing so may improve the predictive and explanatory power of extant (...) models. (shrink)

Recent epistemology has reflected a growing interest in issues about the value of knowledge and the values informing epistemic appraisal. Is knowledge more valuable that merely true belief or even justified true belief? Is truth the central value informing epistemic appraisal or do other values enter the picture? Epistemic Value is a collection of previously unpublished articles on such issues by leading philosophers in the field. It will stimulate discussion of the nature of knowledge and of directions that might be (...) taken by the theory of knowledge. The contributors are Jason Baehr, Michael Brady, Berit Brogaard, Michael DePaul, Pascal Engel, Catherine Elgin, Alvin Goldman, John Greco, Stephen Grimm, Ward Jones, Martin Kusch, Jonathan Kvanvig, Michael Lynch, Erik Olsson, Wayne Riggs and Matthew Weiner. (shrink)

Standing institutions have a continuous existence: examples include the United Nations, the British Parliament, the US presidency, the standing committees of the US Congress, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Intermittent institutions have a discontinuous existence: examples include the Roman dictatorship, the Estates-General of France, constitutional conventions, citizens' assemblies, the Electoral College, grand and petit juries, special prosecutors, various types of temporary courts and military tribunals, ad hoc congressional committees, and ad hoc panels such as the 9/11 Commission and base-closing commissions. (...) Within the class of intermittent institutions, one may distinguish periodic from episodic institutions. The former come into being on a schedule set down in advance, while the latter come into being at unpredictable intervals. The Electoral College is a periodic institution, while the Roman dictatorship is an episodic one. This article attempts to identify the benefits and costs of intermittent institutions, both as a class and in their periodic and episodic varieties. The largest goals are to state some general conditions under which intermittent institutions prove superior or inferior to standing institutions, and to illuminate the temporal dimension of institutional design. (shrink)

In this article I examine the contemporary discourses and debates that surround the sociology of spirituality, with especial attention to the term “spirituality”. To counter the widespread belief that this term lacks clarity and utility, I suggest reconsidering Max Weber’s use of the term “spirit,” as it refers to a recognisable ethic that results in specific behaviour, while still retaining its religious and spiritual connotations. Through focusing on two influential English figures in the post 9/11 God debate in the West, (...) Richard Dawkins and Karen Armstrong, I provide a brief case study of how Weber’s understanding of “spirit” serves great utility in illuminating what drives the ideas, identity-making and behaviour of contemporary atheists and those defending religion. By utilising Weber’s “spirit,” rather than the term spirituality, I demonstrate that this enables us to dig deep into the social context and backgrounds of these two individuals, and to avoid taking their statements at face value – a common criticism of sociology of spirituality studies. I argue that the use of “spirit,” in terms of a recognisable ethic that results in specific behaviour, would benefit the sociology of spirituality. This is because it grounds the God debaters’ ideas and beliefs in a recognisable human experience that eludes reductive distinctions and disembodied abstractions. (shrink)

In their widely cited article, Swain et al. report data that, purportedly, demonstrates instability of folk epistemic intuitions regarding the famous Truetemp case authored by Keith Lehrer. What they found is a typical example of priming, where presenting one stimulus before presenting another stimulus affects the way the latter is perceived or evaluated. In their experiment, laypersons were less likely to attribute knowledge in the Truetemp case when they first read a scenario describing a clear case of knowledge, and more (...) likely to ascribe knowledge when they first read a vignette describing a clear case of nonknowledge. We tried to replicate Swain et al. findings in three experiments: one devised in Polish, and the other two conducted in English. We found no priming effect for knowledge ratings regarding the Truetemp case – laypersons were similarly likely to attribute knowledge in all three investigated conditions. These three failed replication attempts are not decisive as to whether the priming effect in question occurs, nevertheless, the collected data puts Swain et al. conclusions about instability of epistemic intuitions in jeopardy. (shrink)

O I Colóquio Internacional de Epistemologia e Psicologia Genéticas: atualidade da obra de Jean Piaget, organizado pelo Grupo de Estudos de Psicologia e Epistemologia Genética e Educação – GEPEGE –, em setembro de 2009, na Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências da Universidade Estadual Paulista – Unesp, na cidade de Marília –SP, teve o objetivo de promover o encontro de pesquisadores nacionais e estrangeiros, bem como de grupos de estudo e de pesquisa brasileiros, que se dedicam ao estudo da obra de (...) Jean Piaget. Os textos que agora apresentamos neste livro se referem às conferências e às palestras expostas nas mesas-redondas, durante o evento.O I Colóquio Internacional de Epistemologia e Psicologia Genéticas: atualidade da obra de Jean Piaget, organizado pelo Grupo de Estudos de Psicologia e Epistemologia Genética e Educação – GEPEGE –, em setembro de 2009, na Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências da Universidade Estadual Paulista – Unesp, na cidade de Marília –SP, teve o objetivo de promover o encontro de pesquisadores nacionais e estrangeiros, bem como de grupos de estudo e de pesquisa brasileiros, que se dedicam ao estudo da obra de Jean Piaget. Os textos que agora apresentamos neste livro se referem às conferências e às palestras expostas nas mesas-redondas, durante o evento. Com esta obra acreditamos que o I Colóquio confirme o seu propósito básico de divulgar a obra de Jean Piaget e de evidenciar a potência da sua teoria por meio do debate de novas pesquisas científicas e filosóficas. (shrink)

The present essay contends that progressive readings of Smith ignore the influence of theological concepts and religious ideas on his work, notably three distinct strands: first, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century natural theology; second, Jansenist Augustinianism; third, Stoic arguments of theodicy. Taken together, these theological elements help explain why Smith’s moral philosophy and political economy intensifies the secular early modern and Enlightenment idea that the Fall brought about ‘radical evil’ and a ‘fatherless world’ in need of permanent divine intervention. As such, Smith (...) views the market as divine regulation of human sinfulness and an instrument to serve God’s providential plan. Indeed, the ‘invisible hand of the market’ represents a nominalist realm where human cooperation intersects with divine providence, blending private self-interest with the public commonweal. I will also argue that Smith’s conception of a morally neutral market is ultimately incompatible with creedal Christianity, in particular orthodox catholic Christian ideas of the common good in which all can share and the practice of charity for those most in need who have been abandoned by state bureaucracy and the marketplace. The main reason is that Smith, not unlike Calvin, tends to divorce human contract from divine gift by dividing the theo-logic of gratuitous reciprocal giving from the economic logic of contract – a dualism that bears an uncanny resemblance with Suárez’s Baroque scholasticism of which Smith’s friend David Hume was rightly critical. In particular, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation theology of Calvin, Luther and Suárez sunders ‘pure nature’ from the supernatural and develops a ‘two ends’ account of human nature, according to which human beings have a natural end separate from their supernatural finality. So instead of participating in the divine oikonomia of asymmetrical gift-exchange, human society and the economy operate autonomously and are ordered towards a purely natural end. Smith conceptualises the market mechanism as both a fundamental precondition for interpersonal relationality and at the same time separate from the sociality it engenders. Smith’s anthropology hovers half-way between Machiavelli and Mandeville’s homo œconomicus in search for maximal profit, on the one hand, and the diametrically opposed conception of man as a gift-exchanging animal striving for mutual social recognition, on the other hand. By viewing market exchange as separate from the private virtues of benevolence, justice and prudence, he introduces a split between the exercise of moral virtues and the operation of commercial society. Such a divide is wholly foreign to the project of an overarching civil compact in the writings of Smith’s contemporary Antonio Genovesi and other members of the Italian schools of civic humanism and civil economy. In consequence, Smith’s œuvre marks a decisive shift from civil to political economy. (shrink)

Adrian Piper joins the ranks of writer-artists who have provided much of the basic and most reliable literature on modern and contemporary art. Out of Order, Out of Sight is an artistic and intellectual autobiography and an (occasionally scathing) commentary on mainstream art, art criticism, and American culture of the last twenty-five years. Piper is an internationally recognized conceptual artist and the only African American in the early conceptual art movement of the 1960s. The writings in Out of Order, (...) Out of Sight trace the development of her thinking about her artwork and the art world, and her evolving awareness of herself as a creative, racial, and gendered subject situated in an often limiting and always absurd cultural and social context. (shrink)

An argument that we should be optimistic about the capacity of “methodologically omnivorous” geologists, paleontologists, and archaeologists to uncover truths about the deep past. -/- The “historical sciences”—geology, paleontology, and archaeology—have made extraordinary progress in advancing our understanding of the deep past. How has this been possible, given that the evidence they have to work with offers mere traces of the past? In Rock, Bone, and Ruin, Adrian Currie explains that these scientists are “methodological omnivores,” with a variety of (...) strategies and techniques at their disposal, and that this gives us every reason to be optimistic about their capacity to uncover truths about prehistory. Creative and opportunistic paleontologists, for example, discovered and described a new species of prehistoric duck-billed platypus from a single fossilized tooth. Examining the complex reasoning processes of historical science, Currie also considers philosophical and scientific reflection on the relationship between past and present, the nature of evidence, contingency, and scientific progress. -/- Currie draws on varied examples from across the historical sciences, from Mayan ritual sacrifice to giant Mesozoic fleas to Mars's mysterious watery past, to develop an account of the nature of, and resources available to, historical science. He presents two major case studies: the emerging explanation of sauropod size, and the “snowball earth” hypothesis that accounts for signs of glaciation in Neoproterozoic tropics. He develops the Ripple Model of Evidence to analyze “unlucky circumstances” in scientific investigation; examines and refutes arguments for pessimism about the capacity of the historical sciences, defending the role of analogy and arguing that simulations have an experiment-like function. Currie argues for a creative, open-ended approach, “empirically grounded” speculation. (shrink)

This book develops a new conception of political economy at the interface of economic and political theory. Political economy is constituted by the interdependence between the economy and the polity that rest on the complex relations of society in which both are embedded. Effective policymaking depends on reflecting this embedding.

In a world of increasing right-wing populism, global capitalism, and a climate emergency, leading thinkers come together to interrogate the meaning and practice of being outspoken. The violence, nativism, persecution, and social hostilities of the twenty-first century demand a call to order: philosophical and theoretical communities must commit their intellectual resources to confronting and articulating the structures, desires, and resentment driving the dismantling of democratic values. Action in the absence of understanding and political vision devoid of inclusive ideas are all (...) the more vulnerable to taking a reactionary turn. Contributors to this volume challenge the return of fascism, dehumanization of immigrants, distrust of science, intolerance of fair and equitable economic models, and suspicion of inclusive political platforms. All, in their own way, tackle the burning question of how we might reimagine twenty-first-century life in the face of divisive forces. Outspoken includes essays by some of the world’s most radical thinkers – Rosi Braidotti, Henry A. Giroux, Amelia Jones, and Slavoj Žižek, among others – who together chart multiple progressive courses for political antagonism and social intervention. (shrink)