Philosophers have claimed that education aims at fostering disparate epistemic goals. In this paper we focus on an important segment of this debate involving conversation between Alvin Goldman and Harvey Siegel. Goldman claims that education is essentially aimed at producing true beliefs. Siegel contends that education is essentially aimed at fostering both true beliefs and, independently, critical thinking and rational belief. Although we find Siegel’s position intuitively more plausible than Goldman’s, we also find Siegel’s defence of it wanting. We suggest (...) novel argumentative strategies that draw on Siegel’s own arguments but look to us more promising. (shrink)

In this piece we explore the COVID pandemic as an opportunity for the articulation and realization of digital health futures. Our discussion draws on an engagement with emergent discourse around COVID-19 and ongoing work on imaginaries of future care associated with digital tools for the detection of cognitive decline and the risk of dementia. We describe how the post-COVID futures of digital health are narrated in terms of the timing and speed with which they are being brought into being, as (...) market actors attempt to establish the scale and durability of the COVID transformation. However, we also point to the particularly spatial changes to medical practice they envisage. In a time of distancing and isolation, the ability to operate effectively at a distance has become integral to the future of medical assessment, diagnosis and care. However, spatialized promises of digital health and the ability to act remotely are unevenly spread – some organizations and entities inevitably have greater reach. (shrink)

We focus on issues of learning assessment from the point of view of an investigation of philosophical elements in teaching. We contend that assessment of concept possession at school based on ordinary multiple-choice tests might be ineffective because it overlooks aspects of human rationality illuminated by Robert Brandom’s inferentialism––the view that conceptual content largely coincides with the inferential role of linguistic expressions used in public discourse. More particularly, we argue that multiple-choice tests at schools might fail to accurately assess the (...) possession of a concept or the lack of it, for they only check the written outputs of the pupils who take them, without detecting the inferences actually endorsed or used by them. We suggest that school tests would acquire reliability if they enabled pupils to make the reasons of their answers or the inferences they use explicit, so as to contribute to what Brandom calls the game of giving and asking for reasons. We explore the possibility to put this suggestion into practice by deploying two-tier multiple-choice tests. (shrink)

Precision medicine (PM) and genomics are increasingly scrutinized through the lens of health inequities. This is a welcome development for a field that, while concerned with health-related differen...

Studies on age-related differences in risk perception in a real-world situation, such as the recent COVID-19 outbreak, showed that the risk perception of getting COVID-19 tends to decrease as age increases. This finding raised the question on what factors could explain risk perception in older adults. The present study examined age-related differences in risk perception in the early stages of COVID-19 lockdown, analyzing variables that can explain the differences in perception of risk at different ages. A total of 1,765 adults (...) aged between 18 and 87 years old completed an online survey assessing perceived risk severity and risk vulnerability of getting COVID-19, sociodemographic status, emotional state, experience relating to COVID-19, and physical health status. Results showed that the older the participants, the lower the perceived vulnerability to getting COVID-19, but the higher the perceived severity. Different predictors explain the perception of risk severity and vulnerability at different ages. Overall, self-reported anxiety over the pandemic is a crucial predictor in explaining risk perceptions in all age groups. Theoretical and practical implications of the empirical findings are discussed. (shrink)

This paper reports an experiment designed to test whether prior consultation within a group affects subsequent individual decision-making in tasks where demonstrability of correct solutions is low. In our experiment, subjects considered two paintings created by two different artists and were asked to guess which artist made each painting. We observed answers given by individuals under two treatments: In one, subjects were allowed the opportunity to consult with other participants before making their private decisions; in the other, there was no (...) such opportunity. Our primary findings are that subjects in the first treatment evaluate the opportunity to consult positively, but they perform significantly worse and earn significantly less. (shrink)

Questo saggio esplora la critica a Marx e al “marxismo” sviluppata da Simone Weil nel corso della sua opera. Vengono identificati tre nuclei principali della critica weiliana al marxismo: la validità del metodo materialistico per lo studio delle scienze sociali; il presunto “messianesimo” di Marx, inteso come la concezione della storia come un progresso intelligente verso il meglio; e l’identificazione del marxismo tout court con una filosofia determinista e meccanicista. Si cerca di definire a quale “Marx” effettivamente sia rivolta la (...) critica di Weil: si sostiene infatti che alcune delle sue argomentazioni siano riferibili alla “vulgata” marxiana, ossia a una lettura semplificata e schematica del marxismo, o alla “tendenza deteriore” del marxismo caratterizzata dall’economicismo e dal meccanicismo, dibattuta anche all’interno della Seconda Internazionale, o a posizioni di Engels e Lenin, o ancora all’operato del PCF o delle organizzazioni operaie, piuttosto che all’effettiva opera di Marx. (shrink)

With the advent of the severe acute respiratory syndrome-Corona Virus type 2 pandemic, the theme of emotion recognition from facial expressions has become highly relevant due to the widespread use of face masks as one of the main devices imposed to counter the spread of the virus. Unsurprisingly, several studies published in the last 2 years have shown that accuracy in the recognition of basic emotions expressed by faces wearing masks is reduced. However, less is known about the impact that (...) wearing face masks has on the ability to recognize emotions from subtle expressions. Furthermore, even less is known regarding the role of interindividual differences in emotion processing. This study investigated the perception of all the six basic emotions, both as a function of the face mask and as a function of the facial expressions’ intensity in terms of participants’ uncertainty in their responses, misattribution errors, and perceived intensity. The experiment was conducted online on a large sample of participants. Participants completed the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale and the Autistic Spectrum Quotient and then performed an emotion-recognition task that involved face stimuli wearing a mask or not, and displaying full or subtle expressions. Each face stimulus was presented alongside the Geneva Emotion Wheel, and participants had to indicate what emotion they believed the other person was feeling and its intensity using the GEW. For each combination of our variables, we computed the indices of ‘uncertainty’, ‘bias’, and ‘perceived intensity’. We found that face masks increase uncertainty for all facial expressions of emotion, except for fear when intense, and that disgust was systematically confused with anger. Furthermore, when faces were covered by the mask, all the emotions were perceived as less intense, and this was particularly evident for subtle expressions. Finally, we did not find any evidence of a relationship between these indices and alexithymic/autistic traits. (shrink)

On the one hand, it is often assumed that the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI) is constrained by a structural body model so that one cannot implement supernumerary limbs. On the other hand, several recent studies reported illusory duplication of the right hand in subjects exposed to two adjacent rubber hands. The present study tested whether spatial constraints may affect the possibility of inducing the sense of ownership to two rubber hands located side by side to the left of the subject's (...) hand. We found that only the closest rubber hand appeared both objectively (proprioceptive drift) and subjectively (ownership rating) embodied. Crucially, synchronous touch of a second, but farther, rubber hand disrupted the objective measure of the RHI, but not the subjective one. We concluded that, in order to elicit a genuine RHI for multiple rubber hands, the two rubber hands must be at the same distance from the subject's hand/body. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Let Me Pay Taxes!Alessia MinicozziThe first memory I have of knowing that I was different was when I was five years old and a caseworker entered my house to verify that I existed.At the age of one and a half, I was diagnosed with a chronic disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy, Type II (SMA). This left me in need of constant care and, at times, hospitalizations. My whole (...) life, I’ve been confined to a wheelchair, and the disease has always affected me profoundly, on a physical and mental level. I have limited range of motion and strength in my arms, muscle weakness affects my speech and breathing, and, like a monkey on my back, SMA has been a constant reminder of my fragility and mortality.In order to comply with Pennsylvania’s disability requirements, a state–appointed caseworker had to make regular home visits to make sure my needs were being met under my parents’ care and that my parents were not lying about my medical needs. These visits would leave me confused and annoyed. I still remember the events that took place the first time a caseworker entered my house and the emotional impact it had on me.The time read 8:09 a.m. on my white clock radio. I wore my favorite pink satin nightgown. My mother came to lift me out of bed and enclose me in my robe. She whispered in my ear that a gentleman was here to meet me—he’d arrived early—and he wanted to ask me some questions. As my mother carried me down the flight of stairs and sat me in my wheelchair, I felt the man’s eyes on our every move. This strange man sat with a scrutinizing look and asked me if I live in this house and do I normally wake up so late? I quickly turned to my [End Page 210] mother and gave her a perplexed stare. Why was this person here at all, and what right did he have to inquire about me like this?Later, my mother would explain that the man was there to make sure that she was not lying when she asked the government for money to care for me. I endured countless visits from that caseworker over many years. Finally, I asked my mother, “When is this man going to stop visiting me and asking me the same questions?” She looked at me and tenderly replied that when my father finished his residency program, then we would have enough money to pay for all my care. I accepted this response and continued playing with my Barbie. Two years later, my father completed his residency program and the visits from the caseworker stopped.In eighth grade, I left an all disabled school and enrolled in a mainstream public school, which seemed odd to me. I asked my parents why the change in schools? My parents explained that they will not live forever and in order for me to live outside an institution, I will need a salary that is above average to pay for personal care. They went on to explain that the only way to accomplish this goal is to succeed in school and to perform better than everyone else. They informed me that because I use a wheelchair, prospective employers will view me as daunting and they may be less likely to hire me. They stressed that the only way to stand out above other non–disabled candidates is to excel in an academic environment. Mom and Dad have always ended the conversation by reassuring me that as long as they are alive, they will make sure I accomplish everything I set out to achieve and that I never feel alone.Since that conversation over twenty years ago, I had only one goal in mind: employment. The possibility of being institutionalized has always been my motivation for persevering through late nights of writing papers and studying for exams. As promised, my parents were the ones who proofread my papers and stayed up with me in order to help me to bed once I was done. When I graduated from the University of... (shrink)

In this article, I will respond to questions regarding the ontological status of relations by exploring Whitehead's pivotal notion of solidarity, especially focusing on the recently published Harvard lectures. Particularly, I shall investigate how solidarity become a metaphysical law in the development of Whitehead's thought, also exploiting other Whiteheadian works of the same period, such as Science and the Modern World and Religion in the Making. I will attempt to show that the comprehension of an immediate brute fact necessarily requires (...) its metaphysical interpretation as an item in a world with some systematic relation to it. I will thus provide my interpretation on solidarity through a comparison with Hegel's notion of Wirklichkeit. (shrink)

While populism has accumulated an extensive research, its gender dimension has remained largely understudied. Only recently has a literature emerged that focuses on the gender dimension of radical right populist parties in Europe, where they have risen from marginal to government positions. In this article, I provide a guide to the topics and results of this recent development and delineate future research lines. In doing so, I will illustrate the relevance of adopting a gender perspective in studying the phenomenon of (...) populism. (shrink)

We revisit the construction of the gravitational functional renormalization group equation tailored to the Arnowitt–Deser–Misner formulation emphasizing its connection to the covariant formulation. The results obtained from projecting the renormalization group flow onto the Einstein–Hilbert action are reviewed in detail and we provide a novel example illustrating how the formalism may be connected to the causal dynamical triangulations approach to quantum gravity.

On March 29,2000, in U.S. v. Wood, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held that a physician cannot be convicted of murder simply for adopting, in an emergency setting, a risky course of treatment intended to prolong life that, when carried out, effectively hastened death. Finding the government's evidence flawed, based on several evidentiary errors and an erroneous denial of a motion for judgment of acquittal on murder charges, the court reversed the conviction of involuntary manslaughter and (...) ordered a new trial.Virgil Dykes, an 86-year-old man, was suffering from severe abdominal pain when he arrived at the Veterans Administration hospital in Muskogee, Oklahoma, on February 5, 1994. (shrink)

On March 29,2000, in U.S. v. Wood, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held that a physician cannot be convicted of murder simply for adopting, in an emergency setting, a risky course of treatment intended to prolong life that, when carried out, effectively hastened death. Finding the government's evidence flawed, based on several evidentiary errors and an erroneous denial of a motion for judgment of acquittal on murder charges, the court reversed the conviction of involuntary manslaughter and (...) ordered a new trial.Virgil Dykes, an 86-year-old man, was suffering from severe abdominal pain when he arrived at the Veterans Administration hospital in Muskogee, Oklahoma, on February 5, 1994. (shrink)

Recent studies have shown that making accurate passage of time judgments (POTJs) for long-time intervals is an important cognitive ability. Different temporal domains, such as circadian typology (biological time) and time perspective (psychological time), could have an effect on subjective POTJs, but few studies have investigated the reciprocal influences among these temporal domains. The present study is the first systematic attempt to fill this gap. A sample of 222 participants (53.20% females; 19–60 years) filled in the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (...) for the measurement of time perspective, the reduced version of the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (rMEQ) for chronotypes, and an ad-hoc questionnaire assessing sleep habits during weekdays and the weekend (for social jetlag). The POTJ was measured using a modified version of a pictorial timeline presented at five different moments. Also, participants judged how different temporal expressions were related to the past, present, and future along a 7-point Likert scale. After confirming the association between eveningness and present-hedonism orientation and morningness and future-orientation, we found that evening-types produced higher scores for future expressions. The subjective POTJ expressed in minutes was predicted by Deviation from Balanced Time (DBTP), present-fatalism orientation, and social jetlag. Finally, the rMEQ score, past-positive orientation, and DBTP predicted the difference between subjective and objective POT. The results are discussed offering an explanation in terms of the interconnections between circadian typology, individual time perspective, and the sense of the POT, suggesting the multicomponent nature of the concept of time. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 2, February 2022.

Our commentary addresses two issues that are not developed enough in the target article. First, the model does not clearly address the distinction among external objects, external body parts, and internal bodies. Second, the authors could have discussed further the role of body schema with regard to its dynamic character, and its role in perspective and in imitation.

This book argues that the mainstream view and practice of critical thinking in education mirrors a reductive and reified conception of competences that ultimately leads to forms of epistemic injustice in assessment. It defends an alternative view of critical thinking as a competence that is normative in nature rather than reified and reductive. This book contends that critical thinking competence should be at the heart of learning how to learn, but that much depends on how we understand critical thinking. It (...) defends an alternative view of critical thinking as a competence that is normative in nature rather than reified and reductive. The book draws from a conception of human reasoning and rationality that focuses on belief revision and is interwoven with a Bildung approach to teaching and learning: it emphasises the relevance of knowledge and experience in making inferences. The book is an enhanced, English version of the Italian monograph Epistemologia dell’Educazione: Pensiero Critico, Etica ed Epistemic Injustice. (shrink)

La rinascita negli ultimi decenni di un nutrito dibattito intorno alla nozione di analiticità dopo le critiche a suo tempo mosse da Quine alla batteria di nozioni utilizzate da Rudolf Carnap (ad esempio, postulati di significato, regole semantiche, definizioni implicite, convenzioni e stipulazioni esplicite) prende le mosse da una riflessione critica sulle argomentazioni di Quine e tenta, da un lato, di approfondire meglio il legame fra analiticità e conoscenza a priori, e, dall’altro, di capire meglio il ruolo che la definizione (...) può svolgere nella costituzione del significato e nella formulazione di verità concettuali. Questa nuova concezione è detta “epistemica” ed ha fra i suoi più autorevoli fautori Crispin Wright, Bob Hale e Paul Boghossian. Boghossian, al pari di molti filosofi critici della nuova concezione epistemica, come Timothy Williamson, conviene però con Quine nel sostenere che gli enunciati analitici hanno portata fattuale e vertono anch’essi sul mondo, oltre che sul linguaggio. Anche per questa ragione essi possono rendere possibile una genuina estensione delle nostre conoscenze. Tuttavia una seconda linea di obiezioni facenti capo dapprima a Paul Horwich, e in seguito agli stessi Wright e Hale, mette in evidenza rispettivamente due difficoltà corrispondenti alle questioni dell’arroganza e dell’accettazione. In questa discussione una parte importante è svolta dalla ripresa e della discussione del condizionale di Carnap, impiegato per rendere conto del ruolo che i termini teorici svolgono nel quadro dell’intera teoria cui appartengono, senza con ciò sposare le conseguenze dell’olismo quineano. La tesi centrale che questo lavoro cerca di rendere plausibile è che una lettura attenta degli ultimi scritti di Carnap mostri come il carattere aperto che egli attribuisce ai termini teorici in ragione, sia dello loro intrinseca indeterminatezza, sia delle revisioni imposte dalle scoperte scientifiche, è perfettamente compatibile con la fattorizzazione del contenuto di una teoria scientifica data in una parte linguistica, il condizionale di Carnap, riguardante la costituzione del significato di un certo termine teorico, e nella sua controparte empirica, che consente di registrare l’impatto dell’esperienza sulla teoria in questione. Se praticabile, questa concezione può a buon diritto entrare nel novero delle teorie epistemiche dell’analiticità, senza accampare alcuna pretesa di far rivivere i fasti della conoscenza a priori classica. (shrink)

Little is known about the impact of success and failure events on age-related changes in affect states and, particularly, in self-esteem levels. To fill this gap in the literature, in the present study changes in affect and self-esteem in 100 young (19 - 30 years) and 102 older adults (65-81 years) were assessed after participants experienced success and failure in a demanding cognitive task. Overall, the success-failure manipulation induced changes on affect states and on state self-esteem, not on trait self-esteem. (...) Regarding age differences, older and young adults were affected to the same extent by experiences of successes and failures. Theoretical considerations of the empirical findings are provided in the general discussion. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to emphasize the theoretical and aesthetical meanings of Plessner’s aesthesiology. His theory on the unity of the senses allows to legitimate the normative sense of sensibility and his pregnancy to understand the organization of experience. Such an aesthetical perspective has also relevant implications for Plessner’s philosophical anthropology and his theory of eccentric positionality of human being, which is mainly a theory on the body-mind philosophical conjunction.