Online research in philosophy

Three experiments with preschool- and young school-aged children (N = 75 and 53) explored the kinds of relations children detect in samples of instances (descriptive problem) and how they generalize those relations to new instances (inferential problem). Each experiment initially presented a perfect biconditional relation between two features (e.g., all and only frogs are blue). Additional examples undermined one of the component conditional relations (not all frogs are blue) but supported another (only frogs are blue). Preschool-aged children did not (...) distinguish between supported and undermined relations. Older children did show the distinction, at least when the test instances were clearly drawn from the same population as the training instances. Results suggest that younger children’s difficulties may stem from the demands of using imperfect correlations for predictions. Older children seemed sensitive to the inferential problem of using samples to make predictions about populations. (shrink)

Acquaintance with the Absolute is the first collected volume of essays devoted to the thought of Yves r. Simon, a thinker widely regarded as one of the great teachers and philosophers of our time. Each piece in this collection of essays thoughtfully complements the others to offer a qualifiedly panoramic look at the work and thought of philosopher Yves R. Simon. The six essays presented not only treat some major areas of Simon’s thought, pointing out their lucidity (...) and originality, but also his underpinning metaphysics, so central to his thought. Rather than attempt to present all aspects of this patient, careful, and penetrating thinker, these essays select enough to situate Simon’s philosophical excavations – especially his moral, political and action theory – among contemporary Thomistic philosophy. In defending philosophy as a valid way of knowing, Simon gives us an approach we can use to avoid contemporary dilemmas in the philosophy of science. Simon holds that philosophical truths both justify scientific method as a way of knowing the real and provide a basis for distinguishing what is ontologically significant in a scientific theory from what is not. This view allows us to avoid the apparently irrational conclusions of quantum mechanics without reducing scientific theories to being mere projections of our conceptual systems. Though aspects of some of the essays are suited for students of Simon’s thought, the essays as a whole introduce the less familiar reader to this great thinking and, further, invite him or her to pursue Simon’s own texts. The volume is enhanced by the inclusion of a definitive Yves R. Simon bibliography 1923-1996. The annotated bibliography is cross-reference in detail, revealing the astonishing variety of topics Simon treated. (shrink)

The possible role of the neurotransmitter serotonin in human affiliative behavior is under-examined in the review by Depue & Morrone-Strupinsky (D&M-S). This commentary reviews evidence indicating that serotonin not only inhibits aggressive behavior that may be detrimental to affiliative bonds with others in a social group but serotonin also enhances prosocial behaviors that may facilitate ties to the social group.

What is justice all about? What is the scope of the concept of justice? What issues can legitimately be evaluated in terms of justice? In her book Justice and the Politics of Difference, Iris Marion Young challenges the concept of justice as defined by John Rawls and used by many others in the philosophical debates that responded to Rawls’s, A Theory of Justice (1971). Is Young’s critique on the prevailing use of the concept of justice and contemporary theories (...) of justice correct? Is her alternative understanding of the concept viable? In this paper I want to critically examine her views on the concept of justice and compare them with a close reading of John Rawls’s use of the concept of justice. The comparison of Young and Rawls will lead me to reconcile their views in terms of the central features of the concept of justice. (shrink)

Young children interpret some acts performed by adults as normatively governed, that is, as capable of being performed either rightly or wrongly. In previous experiments, children have made this interpretation when adults introduced them to novel acts with normative language (e.g. ‘this is the way it goes’), along with pedagogical cues signaling culturally important information, and with social-pragmatic marking that this action is a token of a familiar type. In the current experiment, we exposed children to novel actions with (...) no normative language, and we systematically varied pedagogical and social-pragmatic cues in an attempt to identify which of them, if either, would lead children to normative interpretations. We found that young 3-year-old children inferred normativity without any normative language and without any pedagogical cues. The only cue they used was adult socialpragmatic marking of the action as familiar, as if it were a token of a well-known type (as opposed to performing it, as if inventing it on the spot). These results suggest that – in the absence of explicit normative language – young children interpret adult actions as normatively governed based mainly on the intentionality (perhaps signaling conventionality) with which they are performed. (shrink)

Social norms have played a key role in the evolution of human cooperation, serving to stabilize prosocial and egalitarian behavior despite the self-serving motives of individuals. Young children’s behavior mostly conforms to social norms, as they follow adult behavioral directives and instructions. But it turns out that even preschool children also actively enforce social norms on others, often using generic normative language to do so. This behavior is not easily explained by individualistic motives; it is more likely a result (...) of children’s growing identification with their cultural group, which leads to prosocial motives for preserving its ways of doing things. (shrink)

In this article I explore if and how very young children can be the educators of their early childhood educators. I describe and discuss a story constructed form a fieldwork done in one early childhood setting in Norway. The story is read with Levinas and his concepts Said and Saying. Further I discuss if and how this might be understood as education arguing that the children`s expressions are offering new beginning and change in the pedagogical thinking and praxis within (...) the early childhood setting. (shrink)

Cambridge professor Simon Blackburn is best known to the general public as the author of several books of popular philosophy such as  ink, Being Good andTruth: a Guide for the Perplexed. Academic philosophers also know him as the author of one of the most important books of contemporary moral philosophy, Ruling Passions, and as a former editor of the leading journal Mind.

I have been proposing for ‘christo‐dao’ rather than traditional christo-logy or modern christo‐praxis as a more appropriate paradigm for the understanding of Jesus Christ in the new millennium. This christological paradigm shift solicits a radical change of its root-metaphor, from logos (Christ as the incarnate logos) or praxis (Christ as the praxis of God’s reign) to ‘dao’ (Christ as the embodiment of the Dao, the “theanthropocosmic” Way) with a critical new interpretation. For EastAsian Christians, the christological adoption of dao is (...) as inevitable and legitimate as that of logos for the Western church at the fourth century. This adoption has been operative since the beginning of Korean Christianity. As an example, in this paper, I introduce the intriguing thoughts of Dasŏk Ryu Young-mo 柳永模 (1890-1981). According to John 14:6, Ryu comprehended Jesus as the Dao, the way of the truth toward the life in God. Christ is the brightest way on which we can walk safely (the truth) to attain the unity with God (the life). It coincides with the goal of Confucianism, the anthropocosmic unity of Heaven and humanity. Fromthis vantage point, he further expressed a nobel East Asian definition of God; namely, God is the One who is ‘the Being in Non-Being’ (Ŏpshigyeshin-nim): He believed that this event of Being-in-Non-Being has been historically manifested in the crucifixion (the Non-Being) and the resurrection (Being) of Jesus Christ. Christ is both the Non-Being (the Non-Ultimate, Vacuity) and Being (Great Ultimate, Form). Finally, confessing Jesus as the embodiment of the Dao is none other than Ryu’s East Asian way of saying “the Word made flesh.”. (shrink)

Hugh Everett III died of a heart attack in July 1982 at the age of 51. Almost 26 years later, a New York Times obituary for his PhD advisor, John Wheeler, mentioned him and Richard Feynman as Wheeler’s most prominent students. Everett’s PhD thesis on the relative state formulation of quantum mechanics, later known as the “Many Worlds Interpretation”, was published (in its edited form) in 1957, and later (in its original, unedited form) in 1973, and since then has given (...) rise to one of the most radical schools of thought in the foundations of quantum theory. Several years ago two conferences held in Oxford and in the Perimeter Institute celebrated the occasion of 50 years to the first publication of Everett’s thesis. The book Many worlds? grew out from contributions to these conferences, but, as its editors emphasize, it is more than mere conference proceedings. Instead, an attempt was made to assemble an impressive collection of papers which together illustrate the promise of the many worlds interpretation and the obstacles it faces. 23 papers divided into six sections follow an introduction by Simon Saunders, one of Oxford’s fiercest Everettians. The first four sections cover two thorny issues that have been flagged by contemporary opponents to the many worlds interpretation, namely, the problem of ontology and the problem of probability, while the fifth discusses alternatives to Everett such as Bohmian mechanics and information–theoretic approaches to quantum theory. The sixth section seems to be a wild card, hosting several papers unrelated to each other, including one of the most interesting contributions to this volume on the history of Everett’s thesis and his (some may say all too) short academic career. Each section concludes with transcripts of the discussion session that took place after the talks, thus giving an additional emphasis to the points of contention. Apart from general comments on the volume, in what follows I would like to concentrate on few papers I found especially illuminating. Start with ontology.. (shrink)

This volume brings together a range of influential essays by distinguished philosophers and political theorists on the issue of global justice. Global justice concerns the search for ethical norms that should govern interactions between people, states, corporations and other agents acting in the global arena, as well as the design of social institutions that link them together. The volume includes articles that engage with major theoretical questions such as the applicability of the ideals of social and economic equality to the (...) global sphere, the degree of justified partiality to compatriots, and the nature and extent of the responsibilities of the affluent to address global poverty and other hardships abroad. It also features articles that bring the theoretical insights of global justice thinkers to bear on matters of practical concern to contemporary societies, such policies associated with immigration, international trade, and climate change. -/- Contents: Introduction; Part I Standards of Global Justice: (i) Assistance-Based Responsibilities to the Global Poor: Famine, affluence and mortality, Peter Singer; We don't owe them a thing! A tough-minded but soft-hearted view of aid to the faraway needy, Jan Narveson; Does distance matter morally to the duty to rescue? Frances Myrna Kamm. (ii) Contribution-Based Responsibilities to the Global Poor: 'Assisting' the global poor, Thomas Pogge; Should we stop thinking about poverty in terms of helping the poor?, Alan Patten; Poverty and the moral significance of contribution, Gerhard Øverland. (iii)Cosmopolitans, Global Egalitarians, and its Critics: The one and the many faces of cosmopolitanism, Catherine Lu; Cosmopolitan justice and equalizing opportunities, Simon Caney; The problem of global justice, Thomas Nagel; Against global egalitarianism, David Miller; Egalitarian challenges to global egalitarianism: a critique, Christian Barry and Laura Valentini. Part II Pressing Global Socioeconomic Issues: (i) Governing the Flow of People: Immigration and freedom of association, Christopher Wellman; Democratic theory and border coercion: no right to unilaterally control your own borders, Arash Abizadeh; Justice in migration: a closed borders utopia?, Lea Ypi. (ii) Climate Change: Global environment and international inequality, Henry Shue; Valuing policies in response to climate change: some ethical issues, John Broome; Saved by disaster? Abrupt climate change, political inertia, and the possibility of an intergenerational arms race, Stephen M. Gardiner; Polycentric systems for coping with collective action and global environmental change, Elinor Ostrom. (iii) International Trade: Responsibility and global labor justice, Iris Marion Young; Property rights and the resource curse, Leif Wenar; Fairness in trade I: obligations arising from trading and the pauper-labor argument, Mathias Risse; Name index. -/- See: www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&calctitle=1&pageSubject=483&sort=pubdate&forthcoming=1&title_i d=9958&edition_id=13385. (shrink)

Iris Marion Young’s politics of difference promotes equality among socially and culturally different groups within multicultural states and advocates group autonomy to empower such groups to develop their own voice. Extending the politics of difference to the international sphere, Young advocates “decentered diverse democratic federalism” that combines local self-determination and cosmopolitanism, while adamantly rejecting nationalism. Herr argues that nationalism, charitably interpreted, is not only consistent with Young’s politics of difference but also necessary for realizing Young’s ideal (...) in the global arena. (shrink)

In a series of exquisite examples that could only have been gathered by a professional philosopher with an extraordinary respect for young minds, Gareth...

In the late 1980s and early 1990s a number of key writers within sociology and anthropology criticised much of the existing research on children within the social sciences as 'adultist'. This has subsequently provoked attempts by academics to define new ways of working with , not on or for, children that have been characterised by a desire to define more mutuality between adult and children in research relationships and to identify new ways that researchers can engage with young people. (...) This paper aims to address some of the ethical complexities that this work has generated by focusing on five areas of ethical concern in relation to research with children in the environments of home and school: consent; access and structures of compliance; privacy and confidentiality; methodologies and issues of power; and dissemination and advocacy. While most of these issues are not necessarily unique to working with children, but underlie many research projects, they are refracted in particular ways in child-oriented research because of the unequal relationships of power between adults and children; the way that adults mediate access to children; the legal complexities of children's position as minors; and the particular nature of the environments—school and the parental home—in which researchers usually encounter young people. (shrink)

Heidegger's central concern is the question of being (Seinsfrage). The paper reconstructs this question at least for the young (pre- Kehre) Heidegger in the light of two interconnected hypotheses: (1) the substantial content of the question of being can be identified by seeing it as a response to (Marburg) neo-Kantianism; and (2) this content centres around the claim that, pace the neo-Kantians, 'epistemological' concerns are grounded in 'ontological' ones, for which reason 'ontology' must precede 'epistemology' as a form of (...) philosophical inquiry. In section I the general position of (Marburg) neo-Kantianism is sketched. In section II the implications of the neo-Kantian position for the concepts of truth and reality, reason, and experience, are outlined; significant similarities to Sellars, Davidson, and Brandom are revealed. Finally, in section III Heidegger's analysis of everydayness is shown to yield a distinct critique of the neo-Kantian relativization of the concept of the real to the theoretically knowable. From this critique it emerges why Heidegger thinks that 'ontology' precedes 'epistemology'. The project of fundamental ontology marked by the question of being thus shows itself to be at least in part a response to the aporia of Marburg neo-Kantianism. (shrink)

For the first time in three centuries, this book brings back into print three discourses now confirmed to have been written by the young Thomas Hobbes. Their contents may well lead to a resolution of the long-standing controversy surrounding Hobbes's early influences and the subsequent development of his thought. The volume begins with the recent history of the discourses, first published as part of the anonymous seventeenth-century work, Horae Subsecivae . Drawing upon both internal evidence and external confirmation afforded (...) by new statistical "wordprinting" techniques, the editors present a compelling case for Hobbes's authorship. Saxonhouse and Reynolds present the complete texts of the discourse with full annotations and modernized spellings. These are followed by a lengthy essay analyzing the pieces' significance for Hobbes's intellectual development and modern political thought more generally. The discourses provide the strongest evidence to date for the profound influences of Bacon and Machiavelli on the young Hobbes, and they add a new dimension to the much-debated impact of the scientific method on his thought. The book also contains both introductory and in-depth explanations of statistical "wordprinting.". (shrink)

In a recent article, Iris Marion Young raises several challenges to deliberative democracy on behalf of political activists. In this paper, the author defends a version of deliberative democracy against the activist challenges raised by Young and devises challenges to activism on behalf of the deliberative democrat. Key Words: activism • deliberative democracy • Discourse • Ideology • public sphere • I. M. Young.

In discussing methodological and ethical codes for working with children there is a danger that young people can become homogenised as a social category. In this paper we examine the way in which common methodological and ethical dilemmas, such as accessing potential interviewees or gaining consent, can become more complex and significant when the research involves work with a 'vulnerable' group of children or youth. Here, we draw on our own experience of working with self-identified lesbian and gay (...) class='Hi'>young people, to demonstrate that research with sexual minorities is particularly sensitive because of the specific laws which frame (or until recently have framed) homosexuality and because of the way in which children are popularly constructed as asexual or innocent. In doing so we also highlight the importance of finding a safe space where interviews can be conducted in privacy and confidence. (shrink)

This essay reconstructs Schelling's philosophical development during the years 1794-1800. It emphasizes the role of Kant's heritage within Schelling's early philosophy, and the strong relationship between Schelling and Hölderlin during their Tübingen years. The central question it explores is how the Absolute relates to Finiteness - a relation that constitutes the basis of transcendental idealism as well as the essence of a transcendental philosophy, here radically understood as a philosophy of finitude and as a critical aesthetics. The essay shows the (...) young Schelling as he presents a rich and novel field of inquiry, which provides a credible and engaging alternative to Hegelian thinking and anticipates themes from twentieth-century philosophy (Phenomenology, Existentialism, Critical Thinking). The volume thus provides both a historical and a contemporary look at Schelling's early philosophy, and at its original and speculative approach. (shrink)

In the last few years, geographers have begun to develop a research interest in children's and young people's attitudes to and relationship with place and locality. While a range of different types of work has been undertaken, most studies are united by their concern for the ethical and practical issues that are raised when children and young people are the subjects of research. In a thought-provoking paper in this journal, Valentine suggested that five main areas of ethical concern (...) might be distinguished: consent; access and structures of compliance; privacy and confidentiality; methodologies and issues of power; and dissemination and advocacy. As she noted, many of these issues are not unique to research with children but are refracted in particular ways because of the particular legal position of children and the inequalities of power between children and adult research workers. In my own work with working class young men aged 15-17, who were no longer children but not yet adults, I found similarities to but also differences from the concerns identified by Valentine, especially as the research I undertook involved repeat interviews. Issues of access, power and dissemination took a different form. In Valentine's paper, the significance of the class, gender, ethnic, age and other social characteristics of both the interviewer(s) and the interviewees and the impact on their interaction were not considered, whereas I found that they were a significant part of the relationships that took place during the course of the research. I also discuss questions of access and of the location of interviewing, ethical issues that arise in representing the views of young people and in returning the research material to them and the problems of trying to undertake critical social research. (shrink)

Mental model theory has been used to explain many differing phenomena in adult reasoning, including the extensively studied case of conditional reasoning. However, the current theory makes predictions about the development of conditional reasoning that are not consistent with data. In this article, young children's performance on conditional reasoning problems and the justifications given are analysed. A mental model account of conditional reasoning is proposed that assumes that (1) young children can reason with two models and (2) the (...) fleshing out of conditionals involves activation of information in semantic memory that uses the minor premise as a retrieval cue. (shrink)

The Young Karl Marx is an innovative and important new study of Marx’s early writings. These writings provide the fascinating spectacle of a powerful and imaginative intellect wrestling with complex and significant issues, but they also present formidable interpretative obstacles to modern readers. David Leopold shows how an understanding of their intellectual and cultural context can illuminate the political dimension of these works. An erudite yet accessible discussion of Marx’s influences and targets frames the author’s critical engagement with Marx’s (...) account of the emergence, character, and (future) replacement of the modern state. This combination of historical and analytical approaches results in a sympathetic, but not uncritical, exploration of such fundamental themes as alienation, citizenship, community, antisemitism, and utopianism. The Young Karl Marx is a scholarly and original work which provides a radical and persuasive reinterpretation of Marx’s complex and often misunderstood views of German philosophy, modern politics, and human flourishing. (shrink)

Drawing on Iris Marion Young’s essay, “House and Home: Feminist Variations on a Theme,” Weir argues for an alternative ideal of home that involves: (1) the risk of connection, and of sustaining relationship through conflict; (2) relational identities, constituted through both relations of power and relations of mutuality, love, and flourishing; (3) relational autonomy: freedom as the capacity to be in relationships one desires, and freedom as expansion of self in relationship; and (4) connection to past and future, through (...) reinterpretive preservation and transformative identification. (shrink)

: This essay explores the value of oppositional, performative political action in the context of oppression, domination, and exclusionary political spheres. Rather than adopting Iris Marion Young's approach, Drexler turns to Hannah Arendt's theories of political action in order to emphasize the capacity of political action as action to intervene in and disrupt the constricting, politically devitalizing, necrophilic normalizations of proceduralism and routine, and thus to reorient the importance of contestatory action as enabling and enacting creativity, spontaneity, and resistance.

In The Classrooms All Young Children Need, Patricia M. Cooper takes a synoptic view of Paley’s many books and articles, charting the evolution of Paley’s ...

The 2003 National Business Ethics Survey, conducted by the Ethics Resource Center, found that respondents who were both young and had short organizational tenure were substantially less likely than other respondents to report misconduct that they observed in the workplace to an authority. We propose that the life-course model of deviance can help account for this attenuation of acquiescence in misbehavior. As employees learn to perceive informal prosocial control during their socialization into the workforce, we hypothesize that they will (...) become more willing to blow the whistle on misconduct. Analysis of the 2003 NBES (n = 1,417, with a subset of 314 who observed misconduct) reveals that young and short-tenured employees do perceive less informal prosocial control, and that informal prosocial control does boost whistle-blowing; however, tests for mediation of the relationship between youth and short-tenure and whistle-blowing by informal social control were largely negative, suggesting that other explanations are still needed. (shrink)

This paper seeks to describe and evaluate the work of the late Iris Marion Young as a critical reference point for values and ethics in the social professions. Her credentials are both experiential and theoretical, having studied analytical then postmodern and phenomenological thought, publishing a series of influential books on political and ethical concepts from a critical feminist position. Her theory and practice were closely related: she actively campaigned for feminist and related social causes for many years. The aim (...) is to provide a broad review of her work, with special reference to aspects particularly relevant to the social professions, and some discussion of implications for practice. It is not the intention to set out a systematic framework of concepts (something she would not necessarily have aimed at herself) but to suggest the fruitfulness of some of her ideas, particularly those relevant to social professionals, and encourage the reader to go back to the original work. (shrink)

Fifty years ago, Herbert Simon (1955, 1997) complained that the available models of rational choice were not feasible decision procedures for agents like us. These models involved variants on the theme of maximizing expected utility: the rational action for an agent is the one that is most likely to bring about outcomes that the agent prefers. Simon’s complaints about these models included the now-familiar notions that human beings do not manage probabilities well, that we have at (...) best radically incomplete utility functions, and that we lack the cognitive resources to calculate the expected utilities of even a few alternatives. (shrink)

Do Buddhist ‘moral’ principles, such as generosity, equanimity, and compassion, consistently map onto Greek and, more generally, Western ‘virtues’? In other words, is it at all possible to talk about a Buddhist ‘virtue ethics’? Should equanimity, for instance, be understood as having the same function in Buddhist moral thought as temperance has for Plato, Aristotle, or the Stoics? Does the Buddha’s effort to embody certain cardinal virtues (sīla) resemble the classical Greek and Roman pursuit of a life of personal flourishing (...) (eudaimonia)? And, to take one step further – Is Buddhism’s perceived enlightened attitude toward the environment suggestive of a new ethics aimed at confronting the global ecological crisis? Buddhism, Virtue, and Environment, a volume co-authored by David Cooper and Simon James, addresses these questions and concerns in a systematic and philosophically sophisticated way. (shrink)

This paper explores Simon Stevin’s l’Arithmétique of 1585, where we find a novel understanding of the concept of number. I will discuss the dynamics between his practice and philosophy of mathematics, and put it in the context of his general epistemological attitude. Subsequently, I will take a close look at his justificational concerns, and at how these are reflected in his inductive, a postiori and structuralist approach to investigating the numerical field. I will argue that Stevin’s renewed conceptualisation (...) of the notion of number is a sort of “existential closure” of the numerical domain, founded upon the practice of his predecessors and contemporaries. Accordingly, I want to make clear that l’Aritmetique have to be read not as an ontological analysis or exploration of the numerical field, but as an explication of a mathematical ethos. In this sense, this article also intends to make a specific contribution to the broader issue of the “ethics of geometry.”. (shrink)

cs' mature theory of Hegelian Marxism has been criticized for the determinacy with which it predicts utopia as a possibility for the future. This paper instead examines Lukács' early, pre-Marxist thinking, which asserts utopia only as the grounding concept for a procedure of cultural criticism, and not as the outcome of any foreseeable process of social change. I attempt to evaluate this non-Marxist utopianism of the young Lukács by focusing in particular on 'The Foundering of Form Against Life: Søren (...) Kierkegaard and Regine Olsen', a 1910 essay in which Lukács criticizes Kierkegaard for failing to articulate any concept of utopia and for focusing instead on private 'faith' as a potential solution to the endemic problems of modernity, such as alienation and reification. Because young Lukács himself thus sets up Kierkegaard as a dystopian rival for his own utopian thought, I use a comparison between these two thinkers as a basis for speculation on the advantages and disadvantages of positing a normative concept of utopia as the basis for social criticism. Key Words: alienation • faith • reification • subjectivity • utopia. (shrink)

Herbert Simon (1916–2001) was definitely 20th century’s most influential proponent of bounded rationality. His work was of a highly philosophical nature, but—as made clear time and again in this book—his ideas did not originate in philosophy at all. If the present collection of essays has any value to the philosophically oriented reader, it lies in the way it shows how a traditionally philosophical topic as human rationality and action cannot be claimed by philosophy alone. Even more, it shows that (...) important contributions to the issue were made in a highly applied context. Therefore, even if Models of a Man: Essays in Memory of Herbert Simon is all but a philosophy textbook (only one contribution is by a ‘professional philosopher’), it is of interest to anyone taking Simon’s influence in philosophy seriously. (shrink)

Ce volume comprend les laquo;Actesraquo; de la Table Ronde reacute;aliseacute;e au sein du XXe Congregrave;s International d'Eacute;tudes Byzantines (Paris, ...

This article highlights Gareth Matthews's contributions to the field of philosophy for young children, noting especially the inventiveness of his style of engagement with children and his confidence in children's ability to analyze perplexing issues, from cosmology to death and dying. I relate here my experiences in introducing philosophical topics to adolescents, to show how Matthews's work can be successfully extended to older students, and I recommend taking philosophy outside the university as a way to foster critical thinking in (...) young students and to improve the public status of the profession. (shrink)

This article attempts to respond to Simon Critchley's claim in a recent debate with Richard Rorty, that the latter, by not fully recognizing its indebtedness to Levinas, misunderstands the political import of the work of Jacques Derrida. I maintain, pace Critchley, that trying to push the Derrida-Levinas connection too far will not only further compound Rorty's view of Derrida as a thinker devoid of political efficacy, but that it will moreover serve to obscure the significant differences which exist (...) between Levinas and Derrida - differences which cannot be overlooked in any serious discussion of the two thinkers in question. In the second half, I try to convince Critchley that what separates Derrida from Levinas is precisely what hooks him up with Rorty at a political level. Both, I argue, are committed to a civic religion of social hope. In so doing, I try to convince Rorty that his caricature of Derrida as a private writer without political consequence, ought now to be seriously reconsidered. Key Words: community • Critchley • democracy • Derrida • ethics • justice • law • Levinas • politics • religion • Rorty • sentiment • singularity • social hope. (shrink)

Points of criticism of the target include: the extreme violence of females in defence of young despite high potential cost, the reality of female dominance striving, differences in male and female ritualization of aggression, the real existence of institutionalized female instrumental aggression, and the uselessness of “patriarchy” as defined as a category for differential analysis. It is concluded that it may in fact be the decline of patriarchy in the strict sense that leads to the female use of exculpatory (...) explanations for aggression, thus reversing Campbell's proposed causal sequence. (shrink)

This review essay discusses two recent attempts to reform the framework in which issues of international and global justice are discussed: Iris Marion Young?s ?social connection? model and the practice-dependent approach, here exemplified by Ayelet Banai, Miriam Ronzoni and Christian Schemmel?s edited collection. I argue that while Young?s model may fit some issues of international or global justice, it misconceives the problems that many of them pose. Indeed, its difficulties point precisely in the direction of practice dependence as (...) it is presented by Banai et al. I go on to discuss what seem to be the strengths of that method, and particularly Banai et al.?s defence of it against the common claim that it is biased towards the status quo. I also discuss Andrea Sangiovanni and Kate MacDonald?s contributions to the collection. (shrink)

Young children generally learn words from other people. Recent research has shown that children can learn new actions and skills from nonhuman agents. This study examines whether young children could learn words from a robot. Preschool children were shown a video in which either a woman (human condition) or a mechanical robot (robot condition) labeled novel objects. Then the children were asked to select the objects according to the names used in the video. The results revealed that children (...) in the human condition were more likely to select the correct objects than those in the robot condition. Nevertheless, the five-year-old children in the robot condition performed significantly better than chance level, while the four-year olds did not. Thus there is a developmental difference in children's potential to learn words from a robot. The results contribute to our understanding of how children interact with non-human agents. Keywords: developmental cybernetics; word learning; social cognition; cognitive development. (shrink)

The highlight of Simon Critchley's small book On Humor (2002) is the inclusion of seven beautiful prints by Charles Le Brun at the start of each chapter. Le Brun's captivating drawings are zoomorphic studies of the human face, each in relation to a different animal.

The Mathematics Education and Neurosciences project is an interdisciplinary research program that bridges mathematics education research with neuroscientific research. The bidirectional collaboration will provide greater insight into young children's (aged four to six years) mathematical abilities. Specifically, by combining qualitative ‘design research’ with quantitative ‘experimental research’, we aim to come to a more thorough understanding of prerequisites that are involved in the development of early spatial and number sense. The mathematics education researchers are concerned with kindergartner's spatial structuring ability, (...) while the neuroscientists are studying kindergartner's automatic quantity processing and its effect on mathematical development. The outcomes of these investigations should contribute to practical ways of fostering and supporting young children's mathematical thinking and learning. (shrink)

As the emphasis in the title of his article indicates, Garry Young (2006) wishes to retain a role for conscious intention in the initiation of intentional acts, a proposal he contrasts with the findings and writings of Benjamin Libet, and also my own comments upon the latter (Libet et al., 1983; Spence, 1996). While Libet's classic series of experiments (and their replication by others) established that the conscious intention to act is itself preceded by predictive trains of electrical activity (...) in the brain, Young wishes to attribute a meaningful role to intention even though it arises relatively 'late' in the stream of causation. He believes intention makes a contribution. The question here, or at least the source of perceived disagreement, seems to be: what is the nature of this contribution? Also, are we talking about a single act or the context within which it (action) occurs? (shrink)

Shepard promotes the important view that evolution constructs cognitive mechanisms that work with internalized aspects of the structure of their environment. But what can this internalization mean? We contrast three views: Shepard's mirrors reflecting the world, Brunswik's lens inferring the world, and Simon's scissors exploiting the world. We argue that Simon's scissors metaphor is more appropriate for higher-order cognitive mechanisms and ask how far it can also be applied to perceptual tasks. [Barlow; Kubovy & Epstein; Shepard].

There is a striking difference between the methodology of the young Einstein and that of the old. I argue that Einstein’s switch in the late 1910s from a moderate empiricism to an extreme rationalism should at least in part be understood against the background of his crushing personal and political experiences during the war years in Berlin. As a result of these experiences, Einstein started to put into practice what, drawing on Schopenhauer, he had preached for years, namely to (...) use science as his means of escaping from “the merely personal.” Whatever the exact sources of Einstein’s about-face, the older man has left us with a highly misleading picture of how the younger man achieved the successes that we still celebrate today. This has had a harmful influence on theoretical physics. If the young Einstein’s successes are any guide as to how successful theoretical physics is done, close adherence to general features of the empirical data is much more and mathematical elegance is much less important than the old Einstein wanted us to believe. (shrink)

Although on opposite sides of the logic of discovery debate, Laudan and Simon share a thesis of divorce between discovery (invention) and justification (appraisal); but unlike some other authors, they do not base their respective versions of the divorce-thesis on the empirical/logical distinction. Laudan argues that, in contemporary science, invention is irrelevant to appraisal, and that this irrelevance renders epistemically pointless the inventionist program. Simon uses his divorce-thesis to defend his account of invention, which he claims to be (...) non-inductive--so evading the problem of induction. Underlying both authors' positions are inadequate conceptions of inductive inference. Laudan here ignores the role in contemporary science of plausibility arguments, which provide a crucial link between invention and appraisal, and thence an epistemic rationale for inventionism. Simon's account of invention does covertly call upon inductive principles from the context of appraisal, and this is what gives his program epistemic import; otherwise he would be vulnerable to Laudan's "no rationale" critique. The tensions in both authors reveal the falsity of the divorce-thesis, and the essential function of induction in both appraisal and invention of hypotheses. (shrink)

: The work of Herbert A. Simon has drawn increasing attention from modern scholars who argue that Simon's work changed during the Cold War. This is due to the fact that Simon seemingly changed the substance of his research in the 1950s. This paper argues that Simon did not change in any significant way, but was lead by his interest in decision making and rationality into areas of economics, political science, sociology, psychology, organization theory, and computer (...) science. He used elements of different disciplines to address his overall interest and there is therefore a considerable continuity in Simon's work. This paper also provides part of a background for the recent increase of interest in Simon's ideas by providing some details of the RAND Corporation and the Ford Foundation's support of scientific research through the post war years in general, and their connections to the behavioral science research at Carnegie Mellon University in particular. (shrink)

How do young children extend names for human-made artifacts, such as knife, toy, and painting? We addressed this issue by showing 3-year-olds, 5-year-olds, and adults a series of simple objects and asking them for each, `What is this?' In one condition, the objects were described as purposefully created; in another, the objects were described as being created by accident. This manipulation had a signi®cant effect on the participants' responses: even 3- year-olds were more likely to provide artifact names (e.g. (...) `a knife') when they believed the objects were intentionally created and material-based descriptions (e.g. `plastic') when they believed the objects were accidentally created. This result supports a theory of artifact naming in which intuitions about intention play an important role. q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Le jeune Heidegger, dont la lecture principale demeura pendant de longues années les Recherches logiques de Husserl, a consacré ses premiers travaux aux problèmes logiques. Sa Dissertation de 1914 analyse les théories du jugement de cinq logiciens contemporains, Wundt, Maier, Brentano, Marty et Lipps qui ont en commun de demeurer à l'intérieur du psychologisme, c'est-à-dire de considérer le jugement comme un acte psychique au lieu de le situer, comme le fait Husserl, dans la sphère logique du sens. C'est sur (...) cette notion de sens que le jeune Heidegger fait porter ses questions et c'est l'analyse de sa structure relationnelle qui lui permet, en s'appuyant sur la théorie de la validité de Lotze et à la suite de Lask et de sa Théorie du jugement de 1912, d'éclairer décisivement la nature proprement logique du jugement. The young Heidegger, whose main reading remained during many years Husserl's Logical Investigations, dedicated his first works to logical problems. His Dissertation (1914) analyses the theories of judgement of five contemporary logicians, Wundt, Maier, Brentano, Marty, and Lipps, who share the same psychologist attitude, which means that they consider judgment as a psychological act instead of situating it in the logical sphere of sense, as does Husserl. The young Heidegger concentrates his questions on this notion of sense and through the analysis of its relational structure, with the help of Lotze's theory of validity and in following the indications given by Lask in his book of 1912 on The Theory of Judgment, he undertakes a decisive elucidation of the properly logical nature of judgment. (shrink)

Very young children occasionally commit scale errors, which involve a dramatic dissociation between planning and control: A child's visual representation of the size of a miniature object is not used in planning an action on it, but is used in the control of the action. Glover's planning–control model offers a very useful framework for analyzing this newly documented phenomenon.

Herbert Simon’s work presents a curious anomaly to the historian and philosopher trying to understand the development of classic Artificial Intelligence (AI). Simon was one of most influential figures in AI since its birth, and yet it is always with some difficulties that his work can be made to fit within the received canon of AI’s development and goals. In fact, he differed from every other figure in early AI on most counts: in terms of the recognized intellectual (...) heritage of AI, of his own background and training, of the goals he set for his own AI work and the assessment criteria he accepted. I will argue that these differences provide important clues toward a reevaluation of the relationship between Artificial Intelligence and Herbert Simon’s work that may change our current understanding of both. On the one hand, classic Artificial Intelligence (or Complex Information Processing, as Simon preferred to call it for a number of years), provided the tool he needed to pursue a much broader research agenda that strove to encompass human beings in their cognitive, emotional, social, and political dimensions. On the other hand, AI’s curious status as the discipline that straggles the boundaries between engineering, science, and philosophy can be recast as the tool that allowed researchers to pursue philosophy’s old goals with an alternative methodology. From this perspective, Simon’s version of Artificial Intelligence becomes a full-fledged form of ”anti-philosophy” as ambitious and broad-ranging as old-fashioned metaphysics and as revolutionary as the latter in the radical refashioning of its methodology. It follows that a philosophical assessment of AI, at in least in its Simonian incarnation, must be more farreaching than it is usually thought. At the methodological level, it must discuss whether AI’s invention of computer simulation as the tool that overcomes the a-priori/a-posteriori distinction by actually producing the behavior it wants to explain is really adequate to the job at hand.. (shrink)

This book collects essays from the 2006 and 2007 International Philosophy Colloquia Evian, centred around a central problem in the philosophy of mind: the relationship between the human faculty of sensory experience and the faculty of conceptual reflection, that is self-consciousness. Containing articles by philosophers of eight nationalities, in three languages (English, French, German), and of "analytical" as well as "continental" provenance, it beautifully represents the spirit of the colloquia. Authors include Joshua Andresen (AU Beirut), Valérie Aucouturier (Kent U / (...) U Paris I), Karin de Boer (KU Leuven), Santiago Echeverri (U Genève), Roberto Farneti (LU Bolzano), Tim Henning (JLU Giessen), Felix Koch (Columbia U), Christophe Laudou (Madrid), David Lauer (FU Berlin), Jason Leddington (Bucknell U), Nicolas Monseu (UC Louvain), Soraya Nour (HU Berlin), Hans Bernhard Schmid (U Wien), Henning Tegtmeyer (U Leipzig). (shrink)

Ni konstruas nun malbonajn korpojn, kun malfinita Morleya ranko, kiuj estas ricevitaj per memsuficanta amalgameco de korpoj kun unara predikato nomanta sumigan au obligan subgrupon, ciam lau la Hrushovskija maniero. Al uzado de ciuj kiuj la anglujon malkonprenas, tiel tradukigas la supera citajo : "Estas prava ke tiu ci kiu kun la sago interrilatigas, la sagecon rikoltas". Gustatempe, la autoro varmege dankas ciujn kiuj la korektan citajon sendis al li, speciale la unuan respondinton : David KUEKER.

Kidney donation by young children and the mentally retarded has been supported by court decisions, arguments based on obligations inherent in family relationships, an array of contextual factors, and the principle of beneficence. These justifications for taking organs from people who cannot protect themselves are problematic and must be weighed against our obligation to protect the vulnerable. A compromise solution is presented that strongly protects young children and the mentally retarded but does not abdicate all responsibility to relieve (...) suffering. Guidelines are proposed that prohibit the retrieval of kidneys from young children and the mentally retarded but permit one exception. They would allow retrieval of a kidney when the consequence to a first order relative with whom the donor has a meaningful and valuable relationship is otherwise imminent death. This would be done in accordance with additional guidelines that minimize harm to the donor. Since most patients with end stage renal disease can be maintained on dialysis the need for a kidney to prevent death should be an uncommon occurrence. This compromise is proposed as a solution to a dilemma that exists because two ethical principles are in conflict and one cannot be honored without violating the other. (shrink)

This essay discusses a less known period of Karl Mannheim's life, namely the period he spent in Hungary. I attempt to point out that the career of the young Mannheim, starting from a philosophical interest and continuing with a sociological one, is continuous. His first published works and letters prove that in the period preceding his emigration to Germany in 1919 he was concerned with questions that received their mature form in his sociology of knowledge. They include primarily the (...) question of culture, that of perspective-boundedness (relativity) of cognition, interpretation and the problem of intellectuals. Despite changing disciplines from philosophy to sociology, the continuity of his oeuvre can be shown. (shrink)

Until the end of the 14th century, the sources of Hebrew mathematical writings were almost exclusively in Arabic. This was particularly true of texts that contained elements of algebra or algebraic developments. The testimonies we present and analyze here are due to Jewish authors living in Italy, primarily in the 15th century, who made use of the most varied sources, in addition to Arabic: in Castilian, in Italian, and perhaps in Latin. These testimonies constitute both an indication, and a product, (...) of the circulation of Arab algebraic traditions in Renaissance Italy. Simon Mo[tdotu ]o[tdotu ]’s book on The Calculation of Algebra stems from the Italian tradition of ‘‘treatises on the abacus’’. Mordekhay Finzi of Mantua is the author of a Hebrew version of the great work on algebra by Abu Kamil (9th century), as well as of a version, distinct from the preceding, of the Arabic scholar’s introductory exposition. Beginning in 1473, Finzi also translated from Italian to Hebrew the important treatise on algebra by Maestro Dardi of Pisa (1344). We also indicate some 16th century continuations of Hebrew mathematical production, which contain algebraic developments. (Published Online February 12 2007) Footnotes1 Dans un précédent article, nous avons présenté un tableau des tout premiers textes algébriques composés en hébreu, entre les XIIe et XIVe siècles: “L'algèbre arabe dans les textes hébraïques (I). Un ouvrage inédit d'Isaac ben Salomon al-Ahdab (XIVe siècle)”, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 13 (2003): 269–301. Nous avons exposé plusieurs résultats de notre recherche dans le cadre du séminaire “Histoire de l'algèbre”, organisé par le Centre d'histoire des sciences et des philosophies arabes et médiévales (CNRS), à Villejuif, au cours des années 2003–2005. (shrink)

Herbert Simon says that the lines of communication should be opened between cognitive science and literary criticism. Why? Is it so that the two disciplines will be better able to appreciate and understand one another? I think so and Simon thinks so too. Is it so that cognitive scientists can learn something from literary critics and their understanding of the process of interpreting texts, so that cognitive scientists might better understand how minds work when engaged in this task? (...) Again, I think so, and Simon agrees, citing a few cognitive scientists for whom this understanding has paid off. For these reasons, I applaud Simon's attempt to open communication between the disciplines. However, here are a few reasons that Simon gives for attempting to open communication that seem incorrect (at least, to me). It is on these that I will focus. (shrink)

It is often taken to be intuitively obvious that if one is in a given conscious state, then one knows that one is in that state. This alleged obvious truth lies at the heart of two very different philosophical doctrines fithe Cartesian doctrine that one has incorrigible knowledge about one?s own conscious states (which still has its defenders today), and the view that one can explain all conscious states in terms of higher-order awareness of mental states. The present paper begins (...) with a description of the real-life case of Simon Browne, a man who believed he had no conscious states whatsoever, although all external evidence overwhelmingly suggests that he had. This case as well as other cases of what can be called ?being in denial? figives reason to reject both the alleged intuitively obvious truth and the two philosophical doctrines which attempt to exploit it. Having abandoned these doctrines, it remains to give an account of Browne?s condition, which picks out both why it is possible and why it is so unusual. This is done by arguing that Browne?s belief is contrary to evidence which he absolutely ought to accept, and that this is necessarily, not just contingently, unusual. In addition, it is shown how Browne?s philosophical beliefs about the mind?body relation contributed to his odd belief. (shrink)

Disoriented animals from ants to humans reorient in accord with the shape of the surrounding surface layout: a behavioral pattern long taken as evidence for sensitivity to layout geometry. Recent computational models suggest, however, that the reorientation process may not depend on geometrical analyses but instead on the matching of brightness contours in 2D images of the environment. Here we test this suggestion by investigating young children's reorientation in enclosed environments. Children reoriented by extremely subtle geometric properties of the (...) 3D layout: bumps and ridges that protruded only slightly off the floor, producing edges with low contrast. Moreover, children failed to reorient by prominent brightness contours in continuous layouts with no distinctive 3D structure. The findings provide evidence that geometric layout representations support children's reorientation. (shrink)

Of great relevance to contemporary debates over socialism and democracy, Young Sidney Hook reopens the controversial question of the relationship between ...

: This paper discusses how Herbert Simon's initial interest in decision making became transformed into a focus on understanding human problem solving in response to the concrete conditions of the Cold War and the practical goals of the military. In particular, it suggests a connection between the seachange in Simon's interest and his shift in patronage. As a result, Simon is portrayed as a component of the scientific-military World War II cyborg that further evolved during the Cold (...) War. Moving from decision making to problem solving, Simon's cyborg science not only required large sums of money, but also managed to acquire these. (shrink)

Last year, as some of you may recall, I took it upon my chairly shoulders to solve the problem of causation, where this problem can be stated this way: What is causation? According to the analysis I offered, C is a cause of E if and only if C makes E happen. I am happy to report that, in the year since delivering this account of causation, no objections have arisen. The critics have been silenced. Indeed, my colleague Dan Hausman, (...) the Herbert Simon Professor of Philosophy, reports that he is no longer satisfied with the view he expressed in his recent book on causation, and I have no doubt that his change of mind is due in no small part to my seminal contribution to this subject. If you would permit me a joke, I think I “made happen” a change in Dan’s mind. I should also mention that we are now fortunate to have amongst us Carolina Sartorio, whose own analysis of causation, arrived at independently (she claims), seems but a stylistic variant of my own. Where I see causes as things that make things happen, she sees them as things that make a difference. I think, but can’t be certain, that our analyses come to the same thing. Perhaps if she hadn’t muddied the waters with all those numbered propositions and ‘ifs’ and ‘thens’ we could settle the matter. (shrink)

I criticize Herbert Simon's argument for the claim that complex natural systems must constitute decomposable, mereological or functional hierarchies. The argument depends on certain assumptions about the requirements for the successful evolution of complex systems, most importantly, the existence of stable, intermediate stages in evolution. Simon offers an abstract model of any process that succeeds in meeting these requirements. This model necessarily involves construction through a decomposable hierarchy, and thus suggests that any complex, natural, i.e., evolved, (...) system is constituted by a decomposable hierarchy. I argue that Stuart Kauffman's recent models of genetic regulatory networks succeed in specifying processes that could meet Simon's requirements for evolvability without requiring construction through a decomposable hierarchy. Since Kauffman's models are at least as plausible as Simon's model, Simon's argument that complex natural systems must constitute decomposable, mereological or functional hierarchies does not succeed. (shrink)

Au XVIe siècle, le Saint Empire romain de nation allemande constitue un ensemble politique complexe, caractérisé par un système à plusieurs niveaux de représentation politique et par l’existence de multiples États placés sous l’autorité impériale. L’étude des cartes et des descriptions géographiques de l’espace germanique produites à cette période met au jour la compréhension qu’avaient les contemporains des formes de souveraineté existant dans l’Empire et ses territoires. Elle montre notamment que le pouvoir impérial, à la différence des pouvoirs territoriaux, n’était (...) pas conçu au premier chef comme une forme d’autorité s’exerçant sur un espace, mais comme une entité juridique et institutionnelle chargée d’assurer le fonctionnement politique et l’unité de l’Empire. (shrink)

In this paper I evaluate Herbert Simon's important computational approach to scientific discovery, which can be characterized as a contribution to both the "cognitive science of science" and to naturalized philosophy of science. First, I tackle the empirical adequacy of Simon's account of discovery, arguing that his claims about the discovery process lack evidence and, even if substantiated, they disregard the important social dimension of scientific discovery. Second, I discuss the normative dimension of Simon's (...) account, here I argue that Simon's project is best understood as a contribution to "android epistemology." I conclude with some comments on the direction a naturalized yet normative philosophy of science might take. (shrink)

This paper examines two different, but closely related, classes of problems. The first part deals with whistleblowers, and the difficulties and dangers that they have often faced, although their actions, in the rare cases where they become necessary, are indispensable for the maintenance of honest science. The problems are illustrated by discussion of several specific cases from 1960 to 1990. The second part deals with problems that face many young scientists today, and the stresses to which they are exposed (...) in an increasingly competitive atmosphere. There are powerful pressures for premature publication, and many gifted scientists are driven to spend an inordinate amount of time in writing grant applications that are turned down for lack of funds, while receiving high praise from reviewers. Correction of conditions is an important matter for science policy; it is also important, among other things, to relieve pressures that would tend to encourage deviations from the standards necessary for trustworthy science. (shrink)

Three experiments investigated changes from 15 to 30 months of age in children’s (N = 114) mastery of relations between an object and an aperture, supporting surface, or form. When choosing between objects to insert into an aperture, older children selected objects of an appropriate size and shape, but younger children showed little selectivity. Further experiments probed the sources of younger children’s difficulty by comparing children’s performance placing a target object in a hole, on a 2-dimensional form, or atop another (...) solid object. Together, the findings suggest that some factors limiting adults’ object representations, including the difficulty of comparing the shapes of positive and negative spaces and of representing shapes in 3 dimensions, contribute to young children’s errors in manipulating objects. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to examine how young publics in the United States and South Korea perceive the corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of multinational corporations and evaluate the effectiveness of CSR practices in terms of organization–public relationship (OPR). Results showed that young publics in the United States and South Korea differently characterized CSR practices of multinational corporations and evaluated relationships with them. Young American participants evaluated the CSR practices of multinational corporations more favorably than (...) did the young Korean participants. In addition, four CSR practices (internal environment, moral, discretionary, and relational) were associated with OPR dimensions in the United States, while only relational CSR practices were significantly related to OPR dimensions in South Korea. Overall, the findings highlight that cultural and societal meanings were embedded in identifying CSR practices and evaluating the relationship with multinational corporations involved in CSR practices. (shrink)

This intellectual history study locates the philosophy of history of Pierre-Simon Ballanche (1776-1847) within the intellectual, religious, and social life of ...

This paper considers the relation between mytho-poetic narrative and practical philosophy in an Idealist/Romantic fragment, usually attributed to Hegel, known as the ‘System-programme’. Like many works of the young Hegel, the text seeks political reform through a reform of religion and suggests that for politics to be truly motivating reason must be embedded in mytho-poetic discourse. This Hegelian ‘reform’ is in the service of a new, sensuous, practical rationality and a motivating political praxis. The paper places these issues in (...) the context of the religious thought of J.J. Rousseau, particularly his religious themes, as presented in The Social Contract . The paper also connects these issues to a political problem identified in recent work by Simon Critchley, the problem of practical or moral motivation. Critchley claims that while citizens of secular, liberal, democratic societies experience the political norms that shape their lives as externally binding, these norms are not internally compelling. Against this he claims that what are motivating are frameworks of belief that call the secular project into question. At least one of Critchley’s solutions to this problem is connected to the sphere of the religious. While accepting the idea that connecting social and political problems to religion can render them motivating, this paper will withhold from endorsing either the solution offered by the young Hegel in the ‘System-programme’ or Critchley’s, and raises doubts also about the Rousseauian response . It argues that these solutions fail to adequately address the problem they face: how to render contemporary political life internally compelling for modern political subjects? (shrink)

Goal-directed problem solving as originally advocated by Herbert Simon’s means-ends analysis model has primarily shaped the course of design research on artificially intelligent systems for problem-solving. We contend that there is a definite disregard of a key phase within the overall design process that in fact logically precedes the actual problem solving phase. While systems designers have traditionally been obsessed with goal-directed problem solving, the basic determinants of the ultimate desired goal state still remain to be fully understood or (...) categorically defined. We propose a rational framework built on a set of logically inter-connected conjectures to specifically recognize this neglected phase in the overall design process of intelligent systems for practical problem-solving applications. (shrink)

Herbert Simon says that the lines of communication should be opened between cognitive science and literary criticism. Why? Is it so that the two disciplines will be better able to appreciate and understand one another? I think so and Simon thinks so too. Is it so that cognitive scientists can learn something from literary critics and their understanding of the process of interpreting texts, so that cognitive scientists might better understand how minds work when engaged in this task? (...) Again, I think so, and Simon agrees, citing a few cognitive scientists for whom this understanding has paid off. For these reasons, I applaud Simon's attempt to open communication between the disciplines. However, here are a few reasons that Simon gives for attempting to open communication that seem incorrect (at least, to me). It is on these that I will focus. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: -- Part I -- 1. Portrait of the psychiatrist as a young man 1927-1960 -- 2. Portrait of the psychiatrist as an intellectual. Laing's early, notebooks, personal library, essays, papers, and talks -- 3. Laing and psychiatric theory -- 4. Laing and existential-phenomenology -- 5. Laing and Religion -- 6. Laing and the Arts -- Part II -- 7. Laing in the Army -- 8. Gartnavel Hospital and the 'Rumpus Room' -- 9. Individual patients at (...) Gartnavel -- 10. Laing at the Southern General Hospital -- 11. Laing in London -- 12. The Divided Self. (shrink)

Abstract The explanations a person may provide of behaviour in everyday life is a central vehicle for clarifying the moral quality of an act. This study is concerned with some aspects of the young persons? conception of criminal events. Students in the 15?17 age range were administered a questionnaire asking them to list five crimes they had heard of, their source of information concerning each crime, the appropriate punishment, and the circumstances under which the punishment should be reduced. A (...) wide variety of crimes was cited, and a systematic relationship was found between the type of crime, the source of information about the event and the sort of punishment proposed. Accounts of the circumstances under which the punishment should be reduced were analysed in terms of distinctions made by psychologists interested in attribution processes, and their relationship with the type of crime was examined. Some of the theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed. (shrink)

Il n’est pas sûr que l’opposition dialectique État/empire soit un outil qui permette de comprendre finement le processus historique qu’elle entend éclairer. Plutôt que d’opposer ce que l’on doit aux empires à ce que l’on a cru être le produit exclusif des États, il convient de reconnaître l’articulation étroite et complexe entre les uns et les autres. Au même titre que l’idée moderne d’État façonnée sur la réalité des États-nations, cette opposition n’est-elle pas une invention récente ? Dans le « (...) laboratoire » italien de la politique moderne, on était conscient de la grande variété des assises territoriales et des formes de domination, qui ne correspondaient pas à une division si tranchée. L’étude des concepts de la pensée politique et de l’historiographie italienne au XVIe siècle permet ainsi d’interroger cette dichotomie et la pertinence d’une interprétation de la modernité sur la base de l’opposition tranchée entre deux grands modèles territoriaux et administratifs. (shrink)

Um die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts tritt die Sinnesphysiologie in eine neue Phase ein. Sie löst sich allmählich von der akademischen Philosophie und bildet sich zu einer professionellen experimentellen Disziplin aus. Trotzdem ist die Philosophie aber nicht völlig aus dem Spiel; es kommt vielmehr zu einem Wettstreit physiologischer Schulen innerhalb der Physiologie selbst um ihre impliziten philosophischen Anschauungen. Außerdem liefern sich die längst etablierte Disziplinen der Physik, Physiologie und Psychologie so etwas wie einen Machtkampf um das Anrecht, die Sinnesphysiologie als (...) Teil ihres Gebiets ansehen zu können. Die einzelnen Wahrnehmungstheorien unterscheiden sich also sowohl durch die Rolle, die sie den einzelnen Wissenschaften bei der Erklärung der Wahrnehmung zuweisen, als auch durch die ihnen zugrundeliegenden philosophischen Anschauungen. (Vgl. Heidelberger 1993, 1997). (shrink)

Abstract: In the context of the well?known fact that the higher stages of Kohlberg's sequence are less well?established than the lower, an exploratory investigation was carried out in a New Zealand teachers? college into the development of principled thinking in young adults and its association with various real?life experiences. It was found that there was no significant increase in principled thinking over time, and that there were no significant correlations between principled thinking and such experiences as marriage, living away (...) from home; vacation work, and church activity. (shrink)

Wittgenstein hérite de Frege l'idée d'une égalité de statut entre affirmation et négation, mais au lieu d'en tirer la thèse d'une absence de force de la négation, il en restaure au contraire la force alors même qu'il ne lui correspond aucune objectivité. D'où vient cette force ? Cette force serait d'expression. Dans cet article, je montre que Wittgenstein n'est finalement pas intéressé par la question sémantique de la négation, mas plutôt par cette attitude propre au philosophe consistant à ne pas (...) faire cas de son symbolisme opératoire, ce qui l'entraîne indûment à s'interroger sur son essence cachée.S'agissant du cas de la négation, Wittgenstein montre comment s'attaquer à la source de notre errement plutôt qu ' à la source de la signification justifiant son usage. Il « traite » ainsi ce qu'il appelle dans une de ses Dictées le « problème de Socrate » . L'impasse sur le symbolisme de la négation est un symptôme d'aveuglement au symbolisme. Reste donc à saisir l'articulation du signe avec le symptôme, soit entre deux espèces de traits que Wittgenstein tient pour hétérogènes. Pourtant, dans son combat contre les préjugés grammaticaux, Wittgenstein entend bien redonnera l'expression du signe une importance qui permet de comprendre en même temps son action sur le symptôme (sa disparition).Dans la « résolution » , une certaine concomitance freudienne entre les deux est donc présupposée. Nous examinons ce point de rencontre avec Freud tout en distinguant leurs conceptions respectives du grammatical. Wittgenstein inherits Frege's conception of equality of status of negative and positive assertions. Yet, far from concluding with Frege that the negation is weak, he restores its strength while at the same time he thinks it is devoid of objectivity since negative facts do not exist. Where does this strength come from ? The answer is : from its sole expressivity. My contention is therefore to show that Wittgenstein is less interested in the semantics of negation than in the philosopher's attitude which consists in neglecting the symbolic operation of negating, hence his questioning the essence of negation.Against this « symptom » Wittgenstein calls « Socrates ' problem » , the right thing to do is to cure it by tracing back the wot of our being misled by grammatical prejudices rather than to look for the source of meaning. What is to be treated is our blindness to symbolism. However we are left with a question concerning the connection between the sign of negation and the « symptom » resulting from omitting the latter. The difficulty arises from the fact that for Wittgenstein they belong to two different realms, while at the same time he seems to assume that the sole strength of expressing negation as a symbol could effect the desappearing of the symptom e.g. the « solution » of the « problem » . It is impossible to appraise this meeting-point between Wittgenstein and Freud without taking into account their respective conceptions of « the grammatical ». (shrink)

Herbert A. Simon's reply (Inquiry, Vol. 25, No. 3) to my criticism of his 1954 paper is not to the point. He fails to respond to some of my arguments and misconceives others. One of his misconceptions is that any mathematical deduction from empirical premises which are formulated mathematically will necessarily lead to empirically valid conclusions. This claim is particularly unwarrantable in Simon's case since his mathematical premise, the continuity of the reaction function, is empirically meaningless.

(2013). Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults Participatory Medicine: Involving Them in the Health Care Process as a Strategy for Facing the Infertility Issue. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 43-44. doi: 10.1080/15265161.2012.760674.

This paper combines Alfred Shultz and Herbert Simon's theories of action in order to understand the grey area between dynamic and completely unstructured decision making better. As a result I have put together a specific scheme of how choice elements are represented from an agent's personal experience, so as to create a bridge between the phenomenological and cognitive-procedural approaches of decision making. I first look at the key points of their original models relating Alfred Schutz's “provinces of meaning” and (...) Herbert Simon's “satisficing” mechanism. I then consider the particular concept of intentionality and reasoning by analogy for different choice settings. Finally I have suggested a perspective based on creative behaviour and sense-making for ill-structured conditions. (shrink)

The paper consists of a reflexive exercise in which Herbert Simon's views concerning science are applied to his own research. It argues that what connected his ventures into so many different disciplinary domains was a search for complex, hierarchical systems. In the process, the paper establishes a close connection between Simon's insights and his focus on simulation. Instead of simulating Simon on a computer, though, it simulates Simon on paper. This exercise is (...) then contrasted with Simon's own attempts to simulate science. This comparison leads to a reflexive evaluation of Simon's simulations. (shrink)

This article examines the events in Thanh Phong, Vietnam, on the night of 25.26 February 1969, when Lieutenant (junior grade) Bob Kerrey led a squad of U.S. Navy SEa-Air-Land (SEAL)s on a mission to capture a Viet Cong district chief. It studies the events at an outlying hooch the SEALs encountered as they approached the village, and what happened in Thanh Phong, examining several sources, most notably Gregory Vistica’s New York Times Magazine article and Kerrey.s recent memoir, When I Was (...) a Young Man. The article explains the differing accounts at the hooch and in the village, and considers whether military necessity, fear for their own lives, or obedience to superior orders can justify what these accounts offer. It concludes that neither Gerhard Klann.s nor the combined conflicting versions offered as his “best memory” by Kerrey gives sufficient reason to justify the deaths of about two dozen Vietnamese civilians. (shrink)

L’article relève les occurrences du terme « aliénation » dans l’analyse hégélienne de la modernité propre à la Phénoménologie de l’esprit. Il analyse la signification du réseau terminologique et sémantique ainsi constitué au regard de la thématique ultérieure (par exemple marxienne) de la critique de la modernité.

The ability of 3- and 4-year-old children to disregard advice from an overtly misleading informant was investigated across five studies (total n = 212). Previous studies have documented limitations in young children's ability to reject misleading advice. This study was designed to test the hypothesis that these limitations are primarily due to an inability to reject specific directions that are provided by others, rather than an inability to respond in a way that is opposite to what has been indicated (...) by a cue. In Studies 1 through 4, a puppet identified as The Big Bad Wolf offered advice to participants about which of two boxes contained a hidden sticker. Regardless of the form the advice took, 3-year olds performed poorly by failing to systematically reject it. However, when participants in Study 5 believed they were responding to a mechanical cue rather than the advice of the Wolf, they were better able to reject misleading advice, and individual differences in performance on the primary task were systematically correlated with measures of executive function. Results are interpreted as providing support for the communicative intent hypothesis, which posits that children find it especially difficult to reject deceptive information that they perceive as being intentionally communicated by others. (shrink)

Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Jonathan Simon: Chemistry, the impure science Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 1-2 DOI 10.1007/s10698-011-9132-y Authors George B. Kauffman, Department of Chemistry, California State University, Fresno, Fresno, CA 93740-8034, USA Journal Foundations of Chemistry Online ISSN 1572-8463 Print ISSN 1386-4238.

The authors examined cue competition effects in young children using the blicket detector paradigm, in which objects are placed either singly or in pairs on a novel machine and children must judge which objects have the causal power to make the machine work. Cue competition effects were found in a 5- to 6-year-old group but not in a 4-year-old group. Equivalent levels of forward and backward blocking were found in the former group. Children's counterfactual judgments were subsequently examined by (...) asking whether or not the machine would have gone off in the absence of I of 2 objects that had been placed on it as a pair. Cue competition effects were demonstrated only in 5- to 6-year-olds using this mode of assessing causal reasoning. (shrink)

Arguments for feature creation receive support from studies of young infants forming category representations from perceptual experience. A challenge for Schyns et al. will be to determine how a feature creation system might interface with a perceptual system that appears constrained to follow organizational principles that specify how edge segments should be grouped into functional units of coherent object representations.

This paper draws on 'views and visions' responses collected at the time of the Land Use-UK project in 1996. Surveyors were groups of school children with contributions in more remote locations from adults. As well as mapping the landscape participants were asked about their hopes and visions for the grid squares surveyed. One kilometre squares were identified by stratified random sampling techniques from the Ordnance Survey National Grid. The responses indicated varying levels of optimism and pessimism. The sample of responses (...) in this paper relates to rural key squares ( N = 424) and urban key squares ( N = 413). Young surveyors appeared to be the most pessimistic and there was some correlation of increasing pessimism with increasing land use intensity. (shrink)

A major issue facing the health of young adults in the United States is the often unintentional lack of confidentiality maintained in the provision of sensitive health services. Of primary concern is that young adults who remain on their parents' health insurance plans forgo Sexually Transmitted Infection screening and treatment, as well as other sensitive services such as family planning services and mental health treatment out of a concern that explanation of benefit forms from such services will inform (...) their parents, the policyholders. The challenges of providing confidential health care to young adults have become more prominent and concerning following the passage of the Affordable Care Act, as adult children can now remain on their parents' plans until the age of 26. While this change will grant more young adults access to health care services, ensuring confidential care remains a challenge whenever the parent and not the patient is the policyholder. This article discusses these serious challenges and offers potential solutions to ensuring confidentiality for specific services for young adults. (shrink)

This paper provides an informal guide to young researchers in science and engineering as they progress for their first 10 or so years from the time that they first started thinking about doing a PhD. This advice is drawn, with examples and anecdotes, from my own research career which started at the Cambridge Engineering Department in 1958, and progressed through 48 years at University College London to a part-time chair that I now hold in Aberdeen. I hope it may (...) encourage and help tomorrow's scientists on whom the Earth's future very much depends. (shrink)

À partir d’une étude qualitative comparée en France et au Québec, nous montrons dans cet article que la phase d’intégration des nouvelles recrues aides-soignantes dans les organisations gériatriques françaises et québécoises est une phase complexe d’expérimentation du métier, où elles intègrent des normes collectives de rythmes de travail. Le collectif de travail, par la voix d’une « ancienne », juge de la capacité des nouvelles recrues à respecter ces rythmes et transmet des stratégies de régulation créées localement et indispensables pour (...) répondre aux prescriptions contradictoires. La situation actuelle d’intensification du travail vécue dans les organisations gériatriques françaises et québécoises conduit néanmoins à une fragilisation dangereuse des collectifs, voire à une individualisation du rapport aux enjeux organisationnels. Une telle individualisation peut conduire les nouvelles recrues à subir une souffrance éthique consécutive au fait d’accomplir des actes moralement condamnables pour parvenir à respecter les normes temporelles. (shrink)

This paper is a short report about a series of picture books and manuals designed for P4C (especially Philosophy for Korean Young Children). There were not proper educational reading materials or books to help Korean young children to think by (or for) themselves and dialogue with. Dr. Sharp’s is a very helpful guidebook for young children to think by themselves, dialogue with friends, and discuss with others (peers, older or younger children, teacher and parents, etc.). (...) However, there remain some needs for consideration of Korean culture. I developed new eight picture books for young children and short manuals for parents and teachers to do ‘thinking experiments’ with children. The stories were created in the contexts of Korean young children’s daily lives and typical episodes. The community of inquiry, which Korean young children participate in, needs to consider general and special aspects, such as the relationship between peers, children-parents, and children-teachers, Confucius or new western customs, new and old generations, moral and cultural atmosphere of Korean kindergartens or childcare centers, etc. Various episodes and scenes in the picture books will revoke and encourage Korean children’s deeper or higher thinking, interesting and creative dialogues, vivid and harmonious discussions based on their own experiences and contexts of life in the community of inquiry. (shrink)