Turning Images in Philosophy, Science, and Religion: A New Book of Nature brings together new essays addressing the role of images and imagination recruited in the perennial debates surrounding nature, mind, and God. -/- The debate between "new atheists" and religious apologists today is often hostile. This book sets a new tone by locating the debate between theism and naturalism (most "new atheists" are self-described "naturalists") in the broader context of reflection on imagination and aesthetics. The eleven essays will be (...) of interest to anyone who is fascinated by the power of imagination and the role of aesthetics in deciding between worldviews or philosophies of nature. Representing a variety of points of view, authors include outstanding philosophers of religion and of science, a distinguished art historian, and a visual artist. -/- The book begins with Martin Kemp's essay on the work of the biologist, mathematician and classical scholar D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson in which Kemp develops the idea of "structural intuitions and a critique of reductive thinking about the natural world. This is followed by Geoffrey Gorham's overview and analysis of images of nature and God found in early modern science and philosophy. Anthony O'Hear questions a reductive, naturalist account of the origin of mind and values. Dale Jacquette offers a thoroughgoing naturalistic philosophy of the emergence of intentionality and a unique argument about the emergence of art and the aesthetic appreciation of nature. E.J. Lowe brings to light some challenges facing naturalistic approaches to human imaginative sensibility. Douglas Hedley articulates and defends a cognitive account of imagination, highlighting some of the difficulties confronting naturalism. Daniel N. Robinson offers a sweeping treatment of nature and naturalism, historically engaging Aristotle, Kant, Hegel and others. Conor Cunningham provides an aggressive critique of contemporary naturalism. Gordon Graham investigates the resources of naturalism in accounting for our sense of the sacred. Mark Wynn provides a subtle understanding of imagination and perception, suggesting how these may play into the theism - naturalism debate. The book concludes with Jil Evans' reflections on how images of the Galapagos Islands have been employed philosophically to picture either a naturalist or theistic image of nature. (shrink)
The idea that intuition plays a basic role in moral knowledge and moral philosophy probably began in the eighteenth century. British philosophers such as Anthony Shaftsbury, Francis Hutcheson, Thomas Reid, and later David Hume talk about a “moral sense” that they place in John Locke’s theory of knowledge in terms of Lockean reflexive perceptions, while Richard Price seeks a faculty by which we obtain our ideas of right and wrong. In (...) the twentieth century intuitionism in moral philosophy was revived by the works of G. E. Moore, H. A. Prichard, and W. D. Ross. These philosophers reject Kantian deontological ethics and utilitarianism insisting that intuition is the only source of moral knowledge. Recently, there is a renewed interest in intuition by philosophers doing meta-philosophy by reflecting on what philosophers do, and why they disagree. In this essay we plan to take some of this recent literature on intuition and apply it to moral philosophy. We will proceed by (1) defining a conception of intuition, (2) answering some skeptical challenges, (3) delimiting its target, and (4) arguing that intuition is often a source of moral knowledge. (shrink)
This paper forms an introduction to this issue, the contents of which arose directly or indirectly from a conference in May 2001 on Corruption of scientific integrity? — The commercialisation of academic science. The introduction, in recent decades, of business culture and values into universities and research institutions is incompatible with the openness which scientific and all academic pursuit traditionally require. It has given rise to a web of problems over intellectual property and conflict of interest which has even led (...) to corporate sponsors’ suppressing unfavourable results of clinical trials, to the detriment of patients’ health. Although there are those who see the norms of science developing to recognise the importance of instrumental science aiming at specific goals and of knowledge judged by its value in a context of application, none justifies the covert manipulation of results by vested interest. Public awareness of these problems is growing and creating a climate of opinion where they may be addressed. We suggest a way forward by the introduction of nationally and internationally-accepted guidelines for industrial collaboration which contain proper protections of the core purposes of universities and of the independence of their research. Some codes suggested for this purpose are discussed. We note that some universities are moving to adopt such codes of conduct, but argue the need for strong support from the government through its funding bodies. (shrink)
In common with a number of other authors I believe that there has been a paradigm shift in the psychology of reasoning, specifically the area traditionally labelled as the study of deduction. The deduction paradigm was founded in a philosophical tradition that assumed logicality as the basis for rational thought, and provided binary propositional logic as the agreed normative framework. By contrast, many contemporary authors assume that people have degrees of uncertainty in both premises and conclusions, and reject binary logic (...) as a workable normative system. I discuss a number of questions and challenges for this new psychology of reasoning, including the following: (a) Do we need an alternative normative system, such as Bayesianism, for the new paradigm? (b) Is there any longer a clear distinction between the study of deductive and inductive reasoning, the latter having its own tradition and literature? (c) Precisely how is the integrated study of reasoning and decision making facilitated by the new paradigm? (d) What difficulties with dual-processing approaches need to be resolved, if they are to take us forward? (shrink)
Many philosophers and psychologists now argue that emotions play a vital role in reasoning. This paper explores one particular way of elucidating how emotions help reason which may be dubbed ?the search hypothesis of emotion?. After outlining the search hypothesis of emotion and dispensing with a red herring that has marred previous statements of the hypothesis, I discuss two alternative readings of the search hypothesis. It is argued that the search hypothesis must be construed as an account of what emotions (...) typically do, rather than as a definition of emotion. Even as an account of what emotions typically do, the search hypothesis can only be evaluated in the context of a specific theory of what emotions are. 1 Introduction 2 The search hypothesis of emotion 3 A red herring: the frame problem 4 The search problem 5 Two readings of the search hypothesis 6 Two final remarks 7 Conclusion. (shrink)
Bayesians take “definite” or “single-case” probabilities to be basic. Definite probabilities attach to closed formulas or propositions. We write them here using small caps: PROB(P) and PROB(P/Q). Most objective probability theories begin instead with “indefinite” or “general” probabilities (sometimes called “statistical probabilities”). Indefinite probabilities attach to open formulas or propositions. We write indefinite probabilities using lower case “prob” and free variables: prob(Bx/Ax). The indefinite probability of an A being a B is not about any particular A, but rather about the (...) property of being an A. In this respect, its logical form is the same as that of relative frequencies. For instance, we might talk about the probability of a human baby being female. That probability is about human babies in general — not about individuals. If we examine a baby and determine conclusively that she is female, then the definite probability of her being female is 1, but that does not alter the indefinite probability of human babies in general being female. Most objective approaches to probability tie probabilities to relative frequencies in some way, and the resulting probabilities have the same logical form as the relative frequencies. That is, they are indefinite probabilities. The simplest theories identify indefinite probabilities with relative frequencies.3 It is often objected that such “finite frequency theories” are inadequate because our probability judgments often diverge from relative frequencies. For example, we can talk about a coin being fair (and so the indefinite probability of a flip landing heads is 0.5) even when it is flipped only once and then destroyed (in which case the relative frequency is either 1 or 0). For understanding such indefinite probabilities, it has been suggested that we need a notion of probability that talks about possible instances of properties as well as actual instances.. (shrink)
Golden parachutes are often viewed as a form of excessive compensation because they provide senior management with substantial payouts following an acquisition while other stakeholders are subjected to layoffs, disrupted business relationships and other negative externalities. Using a sample of S&P 500 firms, an economic and ethical justification for this type of contract is given. Golden parachutes ensure effective corporate governance that, in turn, preserve the firm's value for all stakeholders. Boards of directors enter into parachute agreements to protect recently (...) hired CEOs' human capital during periods of financial uncertainty and, thus, potential takeover activity. From an ethics viewpoint, golden parachutes are valuable to all stakeholders because they encourage merger or acquisition in lieu of bankruptcy. (shrink)
There are good grounds for seeing a deep opposition between reason and violence. Yet some forms of argument appear to link the two; and a prominent example is the argumentum ad baculum, where the premise contains a threat. Consideration of the connection between premise and conclusion in such an argument can, it seems, yield some cases where the status of the author of the threat renders the argument not only valid but also sound. Examples of such arguments cluster in the (...) areas near Pascal's Wager and Rawls' argument for justice. However even these arguments fail to effect a reconciliation between reason and violence. (shrink)
This book will be of interest to philosophers and historians of ideas as well as to specialists in Greek philosophy. All quotations are translated into English and there is a glossary of key Greek terms.
For thousands of years, many Western thinkers have assumed that emotions are, at best, harmless luxuries, and at worst outright obstacles to intelligent action. In the past decade, however, scientists and philosophers have begun to challenge this 'negative view of emotion'. Neuroscientists, psychologists and researchers in artificial intelligence now agree that emotions are vital to intelligent action. Evolutionary considerations have played a vital role in this shift to a more positive view of emotion. -/- This book brings together some of (...) the leading thinkers about emotion from a variety of disciplines. In a series of fascinating and challenging essays, they examine the role that evolutionary considerations can play in helping us to understand the role of emotions in rational thought and decision-making. How should we understand the evolutionary role of emotions? And can this explain the relationship between emotions and rationality? (shrink)
Maria Lugones and other writers of post-colonial discourse emphasize hybrid over univocal identities. I argue that a significantly expanded version of Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of “dialogized heteroglossia” reveals that the linguistic community and the “voives” at play in the latter constitute a form of dialogic hybridity. This view of the linguistic community offers an alternative to the notion of pure identities and the politics of exclusion that it has supported either overtly or tacitly. Moreover, a political principle - “the interplay (...) of equally audible voices” - can be derived from this view; it permits us simultaneously to affirmmulticulturalism and to deny racism, sexism, classism and other exclusionary discourses the right to become policy-making voices.Maria Lugones et d’autres théoriciens du discours post-colonial mettent l’accent sur les identités hybrides par opposition à univoques. Je soutiens qu’une version significativement plus large de la notion bakhtinienne d’“hétéroglossie dialogisée” fait ressortir que la communauté linguistique et les “voix” en jeu dans cette dernière constituent une forme d’hybridité dialogique. Cette conception de lacommunauté linguistique offre une alternative à la notion d’identité pure et à la politique d’exclusion qu’elle a défendue, ouvertement ou de façon tacite. De plus, un principe politique - “le jeu de voix audibles au même degré” - peut être tiré de cette conception, lequel permettrait à la fois d’affirmer le multiculturalisme et d’empêcher que le racisme, le sexisme, le classicisme et tout autre discours d’exclusion puissent devenir des voix qui déterminent fes pofitiques du jour. (shrink)
Neuropsychological findings used to motivate the “two visual systems” hypothesis have been taken to endanger a pair of widely accepted claims about spatial representation in conscious visual experience. The first is the claim that visual experience represents 3-D space around the perceiver using an egocentric frame of reference. The second is the claim that there is a constitutive link between the spatial contents of visual experience and the perceiver’s bodily actions. In this paper, I review and assess three main sources (...) of evidence for the two visual systems hypothesis. I argue that the best interpretation of tbe evidence is in fact consistent with both claims. I conclude with some brief remarks on the relation between visual consciousness and rational agency. (shrink)
This volume is a state-of-the-art survey of the psychology of reasoning, based around, and in tribute to, one of the field "s most eminent figures: Jonathan St B.T. Evans.
_The Sub ject of Con scious ness_ is a rich, strik ingly orig i nal and ambi tious work. It makes an impor tant and timely con tri bu tion to cur rent debates on a num ber of issues which over the last few years have been tak ing cen tre stage in the phi los o phy of mind: for exam ple, self-consciousness, selec tive atten tion and the nature of bodily aware ness. What makes this achieve ment (...) some what unusual, and all the more remark able, is that _The Sub ject of Con scious ness_ was pub lished thirty years ago (Evans, 1970). The reviews it received at the time ranged from the hos tile to the deri sory. (shrink)
This paper is devoted to an examination of some aspects of the central issue of Cognitive Dynamics, the issue about the conditions under which intentional mental states may persist over time. I discuss two main sorts of approach to the topic: the directly referential approach, which I take as best represented in David Kaplan?s views, and the neo-Fregean approach, which I take as best represented in Gareth Evans?s views. The upshot of my discussion is twofold. On the one hand, (...) I argue that both Kaplan?s account and Evans?s account are on the whole defective (for different sorts of reason, of course); even though there are features of each of those views which seem to me to be along the right lines. On the other, and in spite of that, I claim that a broadly Fregean theory is still to be preferred since by positing semantically efficacious modes of presentation it is clearly better equipped to deal adequately with some important phenomena in the area. In particular, I argue that the notion of a memory-based demonstrative mode of presentation of an object (a spatio-temporal particular, a region in space, a period of time, etc.) turns out to be indispensable for the purpose of accounting for the persistence of an important range of mental states with propositional content over time. (shrink)
In a recent paper, Dylan Evans proposed that emotions could help solve what has been known as ?the frame problem?. In the process, he first questioned the utility of using the frame problem as a framework. After tackling this issue, he provided an alternative terminology to the frame problem?termed ?the search hypothesis of emotion??in order to re-examine how emotions aid rational agents. His new terminology, however, opens itself to other critiques. While accepting the basic tenets of his analysis, I (...) question (i) whether a single search theory of emotion is adequate, and (ii) whether his theory would have been better termed ?the search hypothesis of feeling?. Finally, I extend some of the ideas developed in Evans' paper. Introduction Emotion, reason and ends The search hypothesis of emotion revisited Conclusion. (shrink)
Machine generated contents note: Acknowledgments Introduction: "Unraveling the Mysteries" Part One. "It All Began on a Warm Summer's Evening in Greece": Aristotelian Insights 1. Aristotle on Sheldon Cooper: Ancient Greek Meets Modern Geek Greg Littmann 2. "You're a Sucky, Sucky Friend": Seeking Aristotelian Friendship in The Big Bang Dean A. Kowalski 3. The Big Bang Theory on the Use and Abuse of Modern Technology Kenneth Wayne Sayles III Part Two. "Is It Wrong to Say I Love Our Killer Robot?": Ethics (...) and Virtue 4. Feeling Good about Feeling Good: Is It Morally Wrong to Laugh at Sheldon? W. Scott Clifton 5...But Is Wil Wheaton Evil? Donna Marie Smith 6. Do We Need a Roommate Agreement?: Pleasure, Selfishness, and Virtue in The Big Bang Gregory L. Bock and Jeffrey L. Bock Part Three. "Perhaps You Mean a Different Thing Than I Do When You Say "Science": Science, Scientism, and Religion 7. Getting Fundamental about Doing Physics in The Big Bang Jonathan Lawhead 8. Sheldon, Leonard, and Leslie: The Three Faces of Quantum Gravity Andrew Zimmerman Jones 9. The One Paradigm to Rule Them All: Scientism and The Big Bang Massimo Pigliucci 10. Cooper Considerations Adam Barkman and Dean A. Kowalski Part Four. "I Need Your Opinion on a Matter of Semiotics": Language and Meaning 11. Wittgenstein and Language Games in The Big Bang Theory Janelle Pötzsch 12. "I'm Afraid You Couldn't Be More Wrong!": Sheldon and Being Right about Being Wrong Adolfas Mackonis 13. The Cooper Conundrum: Good Lord, Who's Tolerating Who? Ruth E. Lowe 14. The Mendacity Bifurcation Don Fallis Part Five. "The Human Experience That has Always Eluded Me": The Human Condition 15. Mothers and Sons of The Big Bang Ashley Barkman 16. Penny, Sheldon, and Personal Growth through Difference Nicholas G. Evans 17. Deconstructing the Women of The Big Bang Theory: So Much More than Girlfriends Mark D. White and Maryanne L. Fisher The Episode Compendium:"Hey, It's a Big Menu--There's Two Pages Just for Desserts" Contributors. "But If We Were Part of the Team... We Could Drink for Free in Any Bar in Any College Town" Index. "Cornucopia...Let's Make that Our Word of the Day" . (shrink)
We discuss our surgical philosophy concerning the subtle interplay between the size of the surgical margin taken and the resultant morbidity from ablative oncological. procedures, which is ever more evident in the treatment of head and neck malignancy. The extent of tissue resection is determined by the "trade off" between cancer control and the perioperative, functional and aesthetic morbidity and mortality of the surgery. We also discuss our dilemmas concerning recent minimally invasive endoscopic microsurgical. techniques for the trans-oral laser removal. (...) or co-ablation of aero-digestive tract tumours, which result in a minimal. surgical margin of oncological clearance. By a process of inductive argument as to the nature of the surgical margin, we consider whether the risks of taking a lesser margin with adjuvant therapy is justified by the attendant gain in reduced surgical morbidity and the possible costs in tumour control. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)
In The Problem of Perception, A.D. Smith’s central aim is to defend the view that we can directly perceive ordinary objects, such as cups, keys and the like.1 The book is organized around the two arguments that Smith considers to be serious threats to the possibility of direct perception: the argument from illusion, and the argument from hallucination. The argument from illusion threatens this possibility because it concludes that indirect realism is true. Indirect realism is the view that we perceive (...) mind-independent ordinary objects, but can only do so indirectly, by perceiving mind-dependent objects: objects whose existence depends on being perceived or thought about. The argument from hallucination draws a similar conclusion: if we perceive mindindependent ordinary objects at all, then our perception of them is indirect in the same way. In responding to these arguments, Smith develops an account of percep- tual consciousness. Perceptual consciousness is a kind of experience, distinct from what Smith calls ‘mere sensory experiences’, or equivalently, ‘mere sensation’. Perceptual consciousness is experience that is properly percep- tual, in which one has the phenomenology of perceiving things in the external world (including one’s body) that exist independently of one’s mind. Perceptual consciousness on its own does not suffice for actually being in perceptual contact with mind-independent reality, although it suffices for it to seem as if one i s . It follows that perceptual consciousness does not suffice for direct perception of ordinary objects, or for direct realism. Nevertheless, Smith holds that the correct account of perceptual consciousness is a crucial element in blocking the arguments from illusion and hallucination, and therefore in supporting the possibility of direct perception. This is an extraordinarily engaging book. Within a single, unified narrative, one encounters the views of many philosophers—Husserl, Fine, Broad, Sextus Empiricus, Loar, Schopenhauer, Meinong, Burge, Dilthey, Russell, Dennett, Sartre, O’Shaughnessy, Evans, Berkeley, Craig, Brentano and many.... (shrink)
Wegner (Wegner, D. (2002). The illusion of conscious will. MIT Press) argues that conscious will is an illusion, citing a wide range of empirical evidence. I shall begin by surveying some of his arguments. Many are unsuccessful. But one—an argument from the ubiquity of self-interpretation—is more promising. Yet is suffers from an obvious lacuna, offered by so-called ‘dual process’ theories of reasoning and decision making (Evans, J., & Over, D. (1996). Rationality and reasoning. Psychology Press; Stanovich, K. (1999). Who (...) is rational? Studies of individual differences in reasoning. Lawrence Erlbaum; Frankish, K. (2004). Mind and supermind. Cambridge University Press). I shall argue that this lacuna can be filled by a plausible a priori claim about the causal role of anything deserving to be called ‘a will.’ The result is that there is no such thing as conscious willing: conscious will is, indeed, an illusion. (shrink)
This paper is about the claim that, necessarily, a subject who can think that a is F must also have the capacities to think that a is G, a is H, a is I, and so on (for some reasonable range of G, H, I), and that b is F, c is F, d is F, and so on (for some reasonable range of b, c, d). I set out, and raise objections to, two arguments for a strong version of (...) this claim (Gareth Evans' generality constraint). I present a new argument for a weaker version of the claim, and sketch some directions of enquiry which this new argument opens up. (shrink)
This volume brings together some of the most important and influential recent writings on knowledge of oneself and of one's own thoughts, sensations, and experiences. The essays give valuable insights into such fundamental philosophical issues as personal identity, the nature of consciousness, the relation between mind and body, and knowledge of other minds. Contributions include "Introduction" by Gilbert Ryle, "Knowing One's Own Mind" by Donald Davidson, "Individualism and Self-Knowledge" and "Introspection and the Self" by Sydney Shoemaker, "On the Observability of (...) the Self" by Roderick M. Chisholm, "Introspection" by D. M. Armstrong, "The First Person" by G. E. M. Anscombe, "On the Phenomeno-Logic of the I" by Hector-Neri Casta((n-))eda, "The Problem of the Essential Indexical" by John Perry, "Self-Identification" by Gareth Evans, and "The First Person--and Others" by P. F. Strawson. The only reader of its kind, Self-Knowledge fills a major gap in the history of philosophy and will be an accessible addition to a wide range of courses. (shrink)
An account of the evaluation of fictional discourse in terms of counterfactuals is sketched which accommodates the insights of D. Lewis and G. Evans but is not committed to the existence of possibilia on the one hand and to taking counterfactuals as barely true on the other hand. By adopting a two-step theory of evaluation which does not evaluate expressions (sentences) across possible worlds modal realism is avoided. And the use of a modified incorporation principle saying that every singular (...) reference made in the scope of a pretence is anaphoric and linked to a quantifier outside the scope allows to incorporate actual individuals within a game of make-believe. (shrink)
Although metaphysics as a discipline can hardly be separated from Aristotle and his works, the questions it raises were certainly known to authors even before the reception of Aristotle in the thirteenth century. Even without the explicit use of this term the twelfth century manifested a strong interest in metaphysical questions under the guise of «natural philosophy» or «divine science», leading M.-D. Chenu to coin the expression of a twelfth century «éveil métaphysique». In their commentaries on Boethius and under the (...) influence of Neoplatonism, twelfth century authors not only anticipate essential elements of thirteenth century metaphysics, they also make an original contribution to the history of metaphysics by attempting to integrate the theory of first principles, philosophical theology and ontology. This volume presents and examines the contributions of the twelfth century to metaphysics made by selected Jewish, Christian and Muslim authors of the Iberian Peninsula and Francia. -/- Contributors include Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (Frankfurt am Main), Andreas Speer (Würzburg), Charles Burnett (London), Alexander Fidora (Frankfurt am Main), Thomas Ricklin (Neuchâtel), Yossef Schwartz (Jerusalem), Josep Udina (Barcelona), Jack C. Marler (St. Louis/USA), Gillian R. Evans (Cambridge), Andreas Niederberger (Frankfurt am Main) and Françoise Hudry (Paris). (shrink)
In this case (5) yields the result that A and D are I-related, but neither is I-related to B or C – the original person has two beginnings of existence. To get round this we need to add to (5)’s right-hand side the condition that there is no pair of distinct, simultaneously occurring person-stages u and v such that u is R-related to x and y and v is R-related to x and no pair of distinct, simultaneously occurring personstages u (...) and v such that u is R-related to x and y and v is R-related to y. In fact this condition can replace (iic) on the RHS of (5). (shrink)
Probabilistic models have started to replace classical logic as the standard reference paradigm in human deductive reasoning. Mental probability logic emphasizes general principles where human reasoning deviates from classical logic, but agrees with a probabilistic approach (like nonmonotonicity or the conditional event interpretation of conditionals). -/- This contribution consists of two parts. In the first part we discuss general features of reasoning systems including consequence relations, how uncertainty may enter argument forms, probability intervals, and probabilistic informativeness. These concepts are of (...) central importance for the psychological task analysis. In the second part we report new experimental data on the paradoxes of the material conditional, the probabilistic modus ponens, the complement task, and data on the probabilistic truth table task. The results of the experiments provide evidence for the hypothesis that people represent indicative conditionals by conditional probability assertions. (shrink)
In this essay I first review Kaplan’s theory of linguistic character, and then explain and motivate a concept of doxastic character. I then develop some concepts for dealing with the topic of belief retention and then, finally, discuss Rip Van Winkle. I come down on Kaplan’s side with respect to the Frege-inspired strategy, narrowly construed. But I advocate something like the Frege-inspired strategy, if it is construed more broadly. On my view it is remarkably easy to retain a belief, and (...) I think Evans is quite wrong about Rip and Kaplan. The central concept I develop, however, that of an information game, is in the spirit of much of Evans’ work. I also borrow some of his terminology. (shrink)
In recent times the question of whether or not there is such a thing as nonconceptual content has been the object of much serious attention. For analytical philosophers, the locus classicus of the view that there is such a phenomena is to be found in Evans remarks about perceptual experience in Varieties of Reference. John McDowell has taken issue with Evans over his claim that "conceptual capacities are first brought into operation only when one makes a judgement of (...) experience, and at that point a different species of content comes into play" (McDowell 1994: 48). In contrast, he proposes that "A judgement of experience does not introduce a new kind of content, but simply endorses the conceptual content, or some of it, that is already possessed by the experience on which it is grounded" (McDowell 1994: 48-49). Ironically, in light of the ambitions of Mind and World, this sits very happily with the firmly embedded views of many traditional classical cognitivists. It has been a long-standing article of faith that, even in its most basic forms, perceptual content must be conceptual. But those who adopt this position have a heavy burden when it comes to explaining the origin and development of concepts (cf. Peacocke 1992a: 9). In line with the proposal that at least some primitive concepts must be innate, theorists like Fodor make appeal to the intrinsic character of such concepts to explain more complex conceptual contents and their essential characteristics (Fodor 1998: 130). Primitive concepts and their properties as simply assumed because of an explanatory need despite that fact that making this assumption has a paradoxical consequence --which, in this case, is revealed by Fodor's claim that all concepts must be acquired inductively (cf. Fodor 1998: 130-132). The good news is that if we opt for a nonconceptualist approach then we need not assume that any concepts are innate. There is a plausible programme afoot, initiated by Cussins, which hopes explain "the construction of cognitive properties out of non-cognitive properties" (Cussins 1990: 374). He encourages us to suppose "that the mind/world distinction is a phylogenetic or ontogenetic achievement" (Cussins 1990: 409). However, some advocates of nonconceptual content believe that providing this explanation will be a relatively straightforward, although clearly difficult, task given that a contentful base of nonconceptual informational states, of the kind Evans envisioned, is presupposed. My aim is to defend Evans but if if nonconceptual content is to play the important role assigned to it of helping to explain the development of concepts then we must explicate the nature of such content in such a way that does not presuppose that it is truth-conditional. We must also be able to say exactly what part nonconceptual responses play in judgement making and conceptual development. It is the burden of this paper to provide a sketch of how both these ends might be achieved and to offer some reasons for thinking the project is a viable one. I do this in two stages. The first is to advocate a modest biosemantic theory of nonconceptual content and the second is to show how this can shore up a Davidsonian understanding of the possession conditions for concepts. (shrink)
We report two studies on the effect of implicitly versus explicitly conveying affirmation and denial problems about conditionals. Recently Evans and Handley (1999) and Schroyens et al. (1999b, 2000b) showed that implicit referencing elicits matching bias: Fewer determinate inferences are made, when the categorical premise (e.g., B) mismatches the conditional's referred clause (e.g., A). Also, the effect of implicit affirmation (B affirms not-A) is larger than the effect of implicit denial (B denies A). Schroyens et al. hypothesised that this (...) interaction is due to uncertainty in the case-wise affirmation of the contrast class of negated elements involved in implicit affirmations. In Experiment 1 we tested this hypothesis by manipulating the set size of the conditional clauses. The results confirm that binary sets, where the contrast class is a singleton, eliminate the differential effect of implicit affirmation and denial. With non-binary sets the interaction is not modulated by the scope of the contrast class (3, 5, 9 elements). Experiment 2 further investigated the role of contrast classes by using class inclusion to construct implicit affirmations (Mammal vs Mammal or Monkey) and implicit denial (No-Mammal vs Mammal or Monkey), in addition to the standard implicit problems mediated by contrast-class inclusion [(No-)Mammal/No-Mammal; Reptile; Snake). Findings indicate that class inclusion (Mammal/Monkey; Reptile/ Snake) only marginally affects performance, and is independent of the type of problem. This would suggest that the implicitness problem-type interaction is dependent on constructing contrast classes. However, the experiment failed to replicate the interaction, even on the subset of problems repeating the abstract letter/number format of Experiment 1. Moreover, with the natural binary set-sizes (vowels/consonants) the implicitness effect was eliminated entirely. (shrink)
The meanings of donkey sentences cannot be captured using a procedure which, like Montague’s, uses the existential quantifiers of classical logic to translate indefinites and the variables to translate pronouns. The treatment of these examples requires meanings which depend on the context in which sentences appear, and thus necessitates a logic which models this context to some extent. If context is represented as the information conveyed in discourse, and the meanings of pronouns are enriched to depend on this information, the (...) result is the E-Type approach (ETA) adapted by Heim (1990) from proposals in Evans (1980) and Cooper (1979). If the context is represented as a list of potential referents, and the meanings of indefinites are enriched to introduce new referents into this list, the result is a compositional formulation like Groenendijk and Stokhof’s (1990) of the discourse representation theory (DRT) of Kamp (1981) and Heim (1982). Either tack suffices to capture the way in which the referents of he and it systematically correspond to the alternative possibilities described by the antecedent. Disjunction offers a parallel way of introducing alternatives in the antecedent of a conditional, as shown in (2). (shrink)
the world. 1 Whereas the content of our beliefs, thoughts, and judgements necessarily involves "conceptualization" or "concept application", the content of our perceptual experiences is, according to Evans, "non-conceptual". Because Evans takes it for granted that we are often able to entertain thoughts about an object in virtue of having perceived it, a central problem in.
Advances in technology are bringing greater insight into the mind, raising a host of privacy concerns. However, the basic psychological mechanisms underlying the perception of privacy violations are poorly understood. Here, we explore the relation between the perception of privacy violations and access to information related to one’s “self.” In two studies using demographically diverse samples, we find that privacy violations resulting from various monitoring technologies are mediated by the extent to which the monitoring is thought to provide access to (...) self-relevant information, and generally neuromonitoring did not rate among the more invasive monitoring types. However, brain monitoring was judged to be more of a privacy violation when described as providing access to self-relevant information than when no such access was possible, and control participants did not judge the invasiveness of neuromonitoring any differently than those told it provided no access to self-relevant information. (shrink)
• An adequate conceptual framework is still needed to account for phenomena that (i) have a first-person, subjective-experiential or phenomenal character; (ii) are (usually) reportable and describable (in humans); and (iii) are neurobiologically realized.2 • The conscious subject plays an unavoidable epistemological role in characterizing the explanadum of consciousness through first-person descriptive reports. The experimentalist is then able to link first-person data and third-person data. Yet the generation of first-person data raises difficult epistemological issues about the relation of second-order awareness (...) or meta-awareness to first-order experience (e.g. (shrink)
With the publication of the final report of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, it becomes clear that there is considerable convergence between a policy agenda rooted on social epidemiology and one rooted in a concern for human rights. As commentators like Jonathan Mann have argued, concern for human rights and the achievement of social justice can inform and improve public health. In this article, we ask a different question: what does a health perspective adds to the (...) enduring fight for a more just world? We consider three possibilities: (1) that public health, in an inversion of Mann's argument, actually provides useful tools for specifying social injustice; (2) that, contrary to the usual critical stance and assumption of weakness, the institutions of public health bring powerful capacities to the practical promotion of social justice; and (3) that health as a banner mobilizes people who would not be mobilized to act in the name of social justice. (shrink)
This paper presents an argument for the claim that historical events are unique in a nontrivial sense which entails the inapplicability of the Hempelian D-N model to historical explanations. Some previous criticisms of Hempel are shown to be general criticisms of the D-N model which can be outflanked in cases where a reduction to fundamental laws is available. I then survey grounds for denying that explanations by reasons can be effectively reduced to causal explanations, and for rejecting methodological individualism. I (...) conclude with some positive remarks concerning the structure of historical explanations and sense in which historical events are unique. (shrink)
The aim of this paper is to develop an adequate version of the D-N theory of explanation for particular events and to show how the resulting D-N model can be used as a tool in articulating a regularity theory of causation and an analysis of the truth conditions for counterfactual conditionals. Starting with a basic model that is largely the product of other workers in this field, two new restrictions are formulated in order to construct a version of D-N explanation (...) that does not yield the counterintuitive results that have plagued all earlier versions. An additional condition is then developed that is indispensable for utilizing the D-N model as a tool in formulating a regularity theory of causation. Finally, it is shown how a suitable model of potential D-N explanation facilitates the formulation of a theory of counterfactual conditionals. (shrink)
Imagining a future world in which people no longer die provides a helplul tool for understanding our present ethical views. It becomes evident that the cardinal virtues of prudence, temperance, and courage are options for reasonable people rather than rational requirements. On the assumption that the medical means to immortality are not universally available, even justice becomes detached from theories that tie the supposed virtue to the protection of human rights. Several stratagems are available for defending a categorical right to (...) life under these circumstances, but none is compelling. Justice and human rights should therefore be understood as social conventions whose stability depends upon rejecting a tyranny of the immortals in favour of cultural traditions that connect rights and liberties with the means for their enjoyment.Imaginer un monde dans lequel plus personne ne mourrait peut s’avérer utile afin de comprendre l’éthique contemporaine. Il devient alors évident que les vertus cardinales que sont la réflexion, la tempérance et le courage concernent des gens raisonnables et ne sont pas des exigences de la raison. Si on suppose que les ressources médicales de l’immortalité ne sont pas disponibles pour tous, même la justice devient indépendante des théories qui relient cette hypothétique vertu à la protection des droits de l’homme. Plusieurs stratégies s’offrent à nous afin de défendre un droit catégorique de vivre selon ces conditions, mais aucune n’est imparable. La justice et les droits de l’homme devraient en ce cas être envisagés comme des conventions sociales dont la stabilité dépend du rejet de la tyrannie des immortels en faveur des traditions culturelles qui relient droits et libertés aux moyens d’en profiter. (shrink)
