Cross-linguistic strategies for mapping lexical and spatial relations from body partonym systems to external object meronymies (as in English ‘table leg’, ‘mountain face’) have attracted substantial research and debate over the past three decades. Due to the systematic mappings, lexical productivity and geometric complexities of body-based meronymies found in many Mesoamerican languages, the region has become focal for these discussions, prominently including contrastive accounts of the phenomenon in Zapotec and Tzeltal, leading researchers to question whether such systems should be explained (...) as global metaphorical mappings from bodily source to target holonym or as vector mappings of shape and axis generated “algorithmically”. I propose a synthesis of these accounts in this paper by drawing on the species-specific cognitive affordances of human upright posture grounded in the reorganization of the anatomical planes, with a special emphasis on antisymmetrical relations that emerge between arm-leg and face-groin antinomies cross-culturally. Whereas Levinson argues that the internal geometry of objects “stripped of their bodily associations” (1994: 821) is sufficient to account for Tzeltal meronymy, making metaphorical explanations entirely unnecessary, I propose a more powerful, elegant explanation of Tzeltal meronymic mapping that affirms both the geometric-analytic and the global-metaphorical nature of Tzeltal meaning construal. I do this by demonstrating that the “algorithm” in question arises from the phenomenology of movement and correlative body memories—an experiential ground which generates a culturally selected pair of inverse contrastive paradigm sets with marked and unmarked membership emerging antithetically relative to the transverse anatomical plane. These relations are then selected diagrammatically for the classification of object orientations according to systematic geometric iconicities. Results not only serve to clarify the case in question but also point to the relatively untapped potential that upright posture holds for theorizing the emergence of human cognition, highlighting in the process the nature, origins and theoretical validity of markedness and double scope conceptual integration. (shrink)

The traditional disputants in the free will discussion--the libertarian, soft determinist, and hard determinist--agree that free will is a coherent concept, while disagreeing on how the concept might be satisfied and whether it can, in fact, be satisfied. In this innovative analysis, Richard Double offers a bold new argument, rejecting all of the traditional theories and proposing that the concept of free will cannot be satisfied, no matter what the nature of reality. Arguing that there is unavoidable conflict within (...) our understanding of moral responsibility and free choice, Double seeks to prove that when we ascribe responsibility, blame, or freedom, we merely express attitudes, rather than state anything capable of truth or falsity. Free will, he concludes, is essentially an incoherent notion. (shrink)

Why is debate over the free will problem so intractable? In this broad and stimulating look at the philosophical enterprise, Richard Double uses the free will controversy to build on the subjectivist conclusion he developed in The Non-Reality of Free Will (OUP 1991). Double argues that various views about free will--e.g., compatibilism, incompatibilism, and even subjectivism--are compelling if, and only if, we adopt supporting metaphilosophical views. Because metaphilosophical considerations are not provable, we cannot show any free will theory (...) to be most reasonable. Metaphilosophy and Free Will deconstructs the free will problem and, by example, challenges philosophers in other areas to show how their philosophical argumentation can succeed. (shrink)

Confidence ratings have often been integrated into reasoning and intelligence tasks as a means for assessing meta-reasoning processes. Although it is often assumed that eliciting these judgements throughout reasoning tasks has no effect on the underlying performance outcomes, this is yet to be established empirically. The current study examines whether eliciting CR from participants during a fluid-reasoning task influences their performance and how this effect is moderated by their initial self-confidence in their own reasoning abilities. In a first experiment, we (...) found that participants performing CR during Raven's Progressive Matrices significantly outperformed a control group who did not provide ratings. Additionally, a second experiment demonstrated that CR only facilitated performance in participants who have a high level of initial self-confidence in their reasoning ability, whereas they were detrimental to participants low in self-confidence. (shrink)

Philosophers’ intuitions about what constitutes autonomy are largely driven by the exemplars or paradigms that we recognize. There are indefinitely many exemplars, inasmuch as there are relatively private personae that serve as autonomy exemplars such as our parents, third grade teacher, or, for the megalomaniac, oneself. But among Western philosophers there are doubtless some exemplars that are widely shared and broadly influential. Philosophical exemplars include Socrates, Aristotle’s magnanimous man, Kant’s noumenal self that is perfectly attuned to the moral law, Mill’s (...) anti-authoritarian non-conformist, Marx’s manin-society, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, and Sartre’s authentic youth who must decide whether to join the French resistance or stay at home for the sake of his mother. Exemplars from outside of philosophy include Antigone, Christ, Faust, Ibsen’s Enemy of the People, Winston Churchill, and even figures from popular culture such as the baseball player Ted Williams, the free spirited flower children of the 1960s, and practically any character that John Wayne ever played. (shrink)

In this article I consider when the question of whether entities exist subjectively (only in the minds of subjects) or objectively (in themselves, independently of the minds of subjects) is important, both theoretically and practically. I argue that when it comes to the metaphysics underlying three types of moral questions, broadly conceived, the subjectivity question does not matter practically, although it is widely thought to matter. Subjectivism does not matter in these moral questions in the same way(s) it matters in (...) some nonmoral metaphysical issues. The moral questions I consider are the meaning of life, normative ethics, and the free‐will problem. The nonmoral issues I address are the existence of God, the traditional mind/body problem, and personal identity. I explain the difference by noting that certain metaphysical issues on the fact side of the fact/value distinction impinge on persons' lives more prominently than do the metaphysics behind the three moral questions. (shrink)

The objection to R-S accounts that was raised by the possibility of external agents requires the acceptance of two premises, viz., that all R-S accounts allow for puppeteers and that puppeteers necessarily make us unfree. The Metaphilosophical reply shows that to the extent that puppeteers are more problematic than determinism per se, pup-peteers may be explicitly excluded since they violate our paradigm of free will. The Metaphilosophical reply also suggests that we should not expect our mature R-S account to supply (...) logically necessary and sufficient conditions for free will, but rather give us answers that agree with our intuitions regarding paradigms of free and unfree decisions. The Irrelevancy reply completed our reply to incompatibilists who continue to object that determinism per se destroys the R-S program. It may be debated whether my autonomy variable account is a satisfactory way to spell out the Irrelevancy reply, but I think that this type of approach suggests the way to vindicating the R-S view from an important type of objection. (shrink)

The following is a criticism designed to apply to most libertarian free will theorists. I argue that most libertarians hold three beliefs that jointly show them to be unsympathetic or hard-hearted to persons whom they hold morally responsible: that persons are morally responsible only because they make libertarian choices, that we should hold persons responsible, and that we lack epistemic justification for thinking persons make such choices. Softhearted persons who held these three beliefs would espouse hard determinism, which exonerates all (...) persons of moral responsibility, or, at least, would not espouse libertarianism. I do not address the view held by some libertarians that we do have epistemic justification for thinking that persons make libertarian choices, a minority position that I believe cannot be sustained. (shrink)

In “The Moral Hardness of Libertarianism”, I accuse libertarians of being morally unsympathetic if they hold three widely shared beliefs: that persons are morally responsible only if they make libertarian choices; that we should hold persons morally responsible; and that we lack epistemic justification for thinking persons make libertarian choices. In “Hard-Heartedness and Libertarianism”, John Lemos, relying on the Kantian principle of ends, suggests a way for libertarians to accept these three beliefs while avoiding the charge of hard-heartedness. In this (...) paper, I criticize Lemos’s rebuttal. (shrink)

Psychiatry is increasingly dominated by the reductionist claim that mental illness is caused by neurobiological abnormalities such as chemical imbalances in the brain. Critical psychiatry does not believe that this is the whole story and proposes a more ethical foundation for practice. This book describes an original framework for renewing mental health services in alliance with people with mental health problems. It is an advance over the polarization created by the "anti-psychiatry" of the past.

The belief that only free will supports assignments of moral responsibility -- deserved praise and blame, punishment and reward, and the expression of reactive attitudes and moral censure -- has fueled most of the historical concern over the existence of free will. Free will's connection to moral responsibility also drives contemporary thinkers as diverse in their substantive positions as Peter Strawson, Thomas Nagel, Peter van Inwagen, Galen Strawson, and Robert Kane. A simple, but powerful, reason for thinking that philosophers are (...) correct in making moral responsibility the prize of the free will problem is this: If we disassociate free will from deserved praise, blame, punishment and reward, reactive attitudes and moral censure, then why care about free will? If free will is not pinned down as that degree of freedom in our choices that we need for moral responsibility, it is difficult to see why anyone would or should care about free will. In this article I argue that some of the most prominent recent writing on free will becomes sidetracked from this key issue. For this reason, a good deal of the literature is so much spilled ink as philosophers misdirect their energies. In section 1 I elaborate just what I believe the key issue in the free will problem is. In section 2 I illustrate what an answer to the key issue requires. In section 3 I suggest motivations for misdirection. In sections 4, 5, and 6 I provide detailed examples of misdirection from compatibilists and libertarians. In sections 7 and 8 I describe some non-misdirected answers to the key question. (shrink)

In "The Illusion of Conscious Will," Daniel Wegner (2002) argues that our commonsense belief that our conscious choices cause our voluntary actions is mistaken. Wegner cites experimental results that suggest that brain processes initiate our actions before we become consciously aware of our choices, showing that we are systematically wrong in thinking that we consciously cause our actions. Wegner's view leads him to conclude, among other things, that moral responsibility does not exist. In this article I propose some ways that (...) traditional philosophical defenders of moral responsibility, both compatibilists and libertarians, might accept Wegner's empirical premise regarding the will but amend their theories so that they may reject his conclusion regarding moral responsibility. (shrink)

Richard Double takes us through James' defence of belief in God, exposing a few fallacies along the way.

John searle has recently claimed to have dissolved what daniel dennett calls 'hume's problem'--The question whether the explanation of behavior by appeal to mental representations can be done without circularity or infinite regress. Searle argues that a careful analysis of the concept of an intentional state shows that mental representations do not require intentional "homunculi" to explain how intentional states have their contents, And, Hence dennett's worry is groundless. I argue that searle's conceptual analysis of intentional states, Even if correct, (...) Provides no clue of an answer to the worry underlying hume's problem. (shrink)

Adopting meta‐level Free Will Subjectivism is one among several ways to maintain that persons never experience moral freedom in their choices. The other ways of arguing against moral freedom I consider are presented by Saul Smilansky, Ted Honderich, Bruce Waller, Galen Strawson, and Derk Pereboom. In this paper, without arguing for the acceptance of free will subjectivism, I argue that subjectivism has some moral and theoretical advantages over its kindred theories.

Psychologists and common sense recognize blaming the victim as a cognitive error (fallacy) that many of us use to support the just-world hypothesis — the view that life is basically fair. In this article Richard Double compares a related phenomenon, blaming the culprit. When we commit the fallacy of blaming the culprit we mistakenly conclude that judging a culprit to deserve blame for an action exonerates everyone else from blame for that action. Double provides several examples of the (...) fallacy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Eclecticism and Adolf Meyer’s Functional Understanding of Mental IllnessD. B. Double (bio)KeywordsAdolf Meyer, eclecticism, functionalism, biopsychosocial modelGhaemi’s Commentary and Meyer’s ‘Eclecticism’I am not against humanism. How could anyone be against the humanistic wisdom rooted in the worthy writings of Socrates, Hippocrates, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Osler, and the others listed by Nassir Ghaemi? Psychiatry should recognize the dignity and value of all people. The problem is that it may not (...) always do so, coming from a reductionist paradigm as it so often does.Ghaemi appreciates that Meyer’s compromising attitude meant that he was “unable to inoculate psychiatry from biological dogmatism.” My emphasis is on the challenge of Meyer’s psychobiology to biomedicine. In the same way, Engel’s biopsychosocial model acknowledged the need to neutralize the power of an impersonal and mechanical medicine. Doctors tend to overemphasize physical abnormalities at the expense of dealing with difficult personal issues.At the risk of oversimplification, I am juxtaposing biopsychosocial and biomedical models in psychiatry. Or in other terms, for our modern understanding, I am asserting a neo-Meyerian approach in contrast to neo-Kraepelinianism. Merely restating the Meyerian perspective will not do, because of Meyer’s ‘give and take,’ and his consequent failure to follow through the implication of his position. At least the ethical ramifications of his conceptual framework need to be acknowledged.Neo-Meyerianism also needs to be realized in the context of the reaction to anti-psychiatry. After anti-psychiatry’s attack, our modern understanding of mental illness has tended to be been subsumed into the binary opposition of ‘pro-psychiatry’ and ‘anti-psychiatry.’ But neo-Meyerianism is as much pro-psychiatric as biomedical psychiatry. It is in this sense that biopsychological approaches have been undermined by the biomedical reaction to anti-psychiatry. [End Page 355]I also agree with Ghaemi that there is a way in which the failures of the biopsychosocial model allowed the development of anti-psychiatry. For example, even though Laing quoted favorably from psychologically minded psychiatrists such as Manfred Bleuler, as far as I know he never made any reference to Meyer. There was never a systematic Meyerian theory to which Laing could refer. In fact, Laing wished to move beyond an interpretative understanding to abandon the metaphor of pathology (Double 2006). Perhaps if the biopsychosocial model had been more clearly defined, Laing would not have felt he needed to take this step. Or, at least in doing so, he would have been clearer about where he stood on this issue. When labeling Laing’s views as ‘anti-psychiatry,’ biomedical psychiatry would have had to state more precisely how Laing’s position was anti- rather than pro-psychiatric.My main disagreement with Ghaemi is his view of Meyer as eclectic. Meyer’s willingness to allow ‘anything goes’ in psychiatry meant that he did not oppose or challenge too much the views of those with whom he disagreed. Nonetheless, he did not combine together different sources to create an unintegrated philosophical and conceptual understanding. His theoretical position is internally consistent.Modern American psychiatry studied by participant observation is “of two minds,” in that there is a divided consciousness created between the practices of drug therapy and psychotherapy (Luhrmann 2000). In this sense, it is eclectic because there is no consistent theory that combines the two practice modes. True, psychiatry often claims that the foundation for this mixture is the biopsychosocial model. It asserts that everyday psychiatry is not as purely biomedical as is often maintained because it takes into account psychosocial factors that may precipitate mental disorders. It, therefore, says that it bring together the biological and psychosocial. This compromise avoids the adoption of any one model and was proposed to neutralize the dogmatism engendered by the anti-psychiatry debate (Clare 1980). I agree with Ghaemi that such eclecticism has outlived its usefulness.Where I think Ghaemi is mistaken is that he sees Meyer and Engel as the originators of this eclecticism. I regard the Meyerian approach as more genuinely pragmatic than Ghaemi suggests. Meyer’s dynamic psychology sought an integration of mind and brain as a way of dealing with the philosophical dilemma of the mind–body... (shrink)

Metaethical subjectivism, the idea that the truth or falsity of moral statements is contingent upon the attitudes or conventions of observers, is often regarded as a lurid philosophical doctrine which generates much psychological resistance to its acceptance. In this accessible book, Richard Double, presents a vigorous defense of metaethical subjectivism, arguing that the acceptance of this doctrine need have no deleterious effects upon theorizing either in normative ethics or in moral practice. Proceeding from a 'worldview' methodology Double criticizes (...) the rival doctrine of metaethical objectivism for lacking both 'completeness' and 'soundness', argues that a defense of metaethical subjectivism requires no special semantic analysis of moral language and defends the plausibility of metaethical subjectivism as explaining key intractable disagreements in moral philosophy. Double concludes by suggesting that the acceptance of metaethical subjectivism is better for constructing theories of normative ethics and moral practice than is metaethical objectivism. (shrink)

George Engel’s biopsychosocial model was associated with the critique of biomedical dogmatism and acknowledged the historical precedence of the work of Adolf Meyer. However, the importance of Meyer’s psychobiology is not always recognized. One of the reasons may be because of his tendency to compromise with biomedical attitudes. This paper restates the Meyerian perspective, explicitly acknowledging the split between biomedical and biopsychological approaches in the origin of modern psychiatry. Our present-day understanding of this conflict is confounded by reactions to ‘anti-psychiatry.’ (...) Neo-Meyerian principles can only be reestablished by a challenge to biomedicine that accepts, as did Meyer, the inherent uncertainty of medicine and psychiatry. (shrink)

Beginning Philosophy offers students and general readers a uniquely straightforward yet challenging introduction to fundamental philosophical problems. Readily accessible to novices yet rich enough for more experienced readers, it combines serious investigation across a wide range of subjects in analytic philosophy with a clear, user-friendly writing style. Topics include logic and reasoning, the theory of knowledge, the nature of the external world, the mind/body problem, normative ethics, metaethics, free will, the existence of God, and the problem of evil. A concluding (...) chapter outlines the worldview developed in the text and connects that view to questions about the meaning of life. The interconnection of philosophical problems and the relationship of philosophy and science are emphasized throughout. The book includes both extensive quotes from historical figures such as Aquinas, Descartes, and Hume and references to philosophically minded nonphilosophers like Dostoevski, Stephen Jay Gould, and Carl Sagan. Beginning Philosophy is designed for use in introductory philosophy courses at a wide range of institutions. It contains numerous pedagogical materials at the end of each chapter: sections called "misconceptions" list errors that introductory readers should avoid; guide questions prompt students to explain in their own words what the text is saying; review questions help students prepare for examinations; open-ended discussion questions call for independent judgment; and annotated bibliographies provide suggestions for further reading. The volume is further enhanced by a list of famous quotations from philosophers, a glossary of philosophical terms, a glossary of names of the most famous philosophers and scientists discussed in the text, and an extensive bibliography listing every work cited. (shrink)