Many philosophers hold that ‘one-instant worlds’—worlds that contain a single instant—fail to contain time. We experimentally investigate whether these worlds satisfy the folk concept of time. We found that ~50% of participants hold that there is time in such worlds. We argue that this suggests one of two possibilities. First, the population disagree about whether at least one of the A-, B-, or C-series is necessary for time, with there being a substantial sub-population for whom the presence of neither an (...) A-, B-, nor C-series, is necessary for time, and hence those folk have a radically more minimal concept of time than has been attributed to them by philosophers. Or, second, the population do not disagree about whether at least one of the A-, B-, or C-series is necessary for time, but disagree about what it takes for a world to fail to contain even a C-series. (shrink)

Over evolutionary time, humans have developed a selective sensitivity to features in the human face that convey information on sex, age, emotions, and intentions. This ability might not only be applied to our conspecifics nowadays, but also to other living objects (i.e., animals) and even to artificial structures, such as cars. To investigate this possibility, we asked people to report the characteristics, emotions, personality traits, and attitudes they attribute to car fronts, and we used geometric morphometrics (GM) and multivariate statistical (...) methods to determine and visualize the corresponding shape information. Automotive features and proportions are found to covary with trait perception in a manner similar to that found with human faces. Emerging analogies are discussed. This study should have implications for both our understanding of our prehistoric psyche and its interrelation with the modern world. (shrink)

Assume, for fun, that temporal parts theory is true, and that some kind of modal realism (perhaps based on ersatz worlds) is true. Within this grand metaphysical picture, what are the ordinary objects? Do they have many temporal parts, or just one? Do they have many modal parts, or just one? I survey the issues involved in answering this question, including the problem of temporary intrinsics, the problem of the many, Kripke's objections to counterpart theory and quantifier domain restrictions.

Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world's top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers – often implicitly – assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these “standard subjects” are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there (...) is substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species – frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior – hence, there are no obviousa priorigrounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions ofhumannature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity. We close by proposing ways to structurally re-organize the behavioral sciences to best tackle these challenges. (shrink)

Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world's top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers – often implicitly – assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these “standard subjects” are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there (...) is substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species – frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior – hence, there are no obviousa priorigrounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions ofhumannature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity. We close by proposing ways to structurally re-organize the behavioral sciences to best tackle these challenges. (shrink)

Mind-wandering is often seen as the result of a certain attention behavior or even an attention deficit. However, Gestalt psychological research points to other explanations: The phenomena referred to as “mind-wandering” can be understood as a reorganization of the total phenomenal field of perception and experience as a result of experiencing serious discrepancies in this field (“non-Prägnanz” or “Imprägnanzen” in Gestalt psychological terminology). If the “non-Prägnanz” in the field is strong enough, the related facts and events are experienced as not (...) being compatible in a single common field. As a consequence, the field of perception and experience is split into two or more fields, each comprising its own phenomenal ego with its own phenomenal world. This approach allows the identification of certain rules for the occurrence of these phenomena and an informed handling of them. The paper introduces this Gestalt psychological multiple-field approach and discusses its conditions, implications, and potential applications. Examples from Gestalt theoretical psychotherapy, in the context of which this approach was developed in a differentiated way, and from other areas of application, serve as illustrations. (shrink)

Genera, typically hand-in-hand with their branching species, are essential elements of vocabulary-based information constructs, in particular scientific taxonomies. Should they also feature in formal ontologies, the highest of such constructs? I argue in this article that the answer is “Yes” and that the question posed in its title also has a Yes-answer: The way medieval ontologists sliced up the world into genera does matter to formal ontology. More specifically, the way Dietrich of Freiberg, a Latin scholastic, conceived and applied (...) strictly generic criteria to slice up the world into its entities can provide some guidelines to the field of formal ontology with respect to not only its contents, but also its scope. In particular, Dietrich's information criterion plays here a central role. (shrink)

This paper aims at discussing a quite specific aspect of Husserl’s phenomenology, i.e., the notion of synthesis of identification, and the role it plays in the arguments set forward in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation during the discussion of the constitution of the other, hence of the monadological inter-subjectivity. The case will be made for considering the very heart of the Meditation to be what we will refer to as Husserl’s “transcendental argument”, consisting in the claim that there can be only (...) one inter-subjectivity, hence, the “world” being the correlate of the transcendental monadological inter-subjectivity, only one real and actual world. This will also give us the opportunity to critically approach a series of views lately held by some leading figures of the “continental” and “analytic” tradition, which, as the first part of the essay will show, pursue views directly opposed to Husserl’s. (shrink)

This thesis seeks to extend the search for the moral implications inherent in the development, possession and threatened use of physical/astrophysical processes and in current understandings of the evolution of the physical universe. ;The nature of moral/theological discussion will not be a primary concern although clearly some residual position that such discussion is meaningful is presupposed. Neither is the nature of science or the scientific method at issue. It is assumed that both theology and science have long since negotiated the (...) confidence crises of adolescence and have mustered the requisite self-esteem regarding their respective disciplines. ;The aim of this work is to present the concept of time-scales as a relevant moral category. It will investigate the use of this concept and its relationship to the other categories developed in the relevant scientific literature. Similarly, the use of this concept will be explored and its influence sought in the analogous documentation from the Catholic tradition. In this investigation the question will be raised as to the validity of and the future of the concept of time-scales as a common moral ground for these two traditions, enhancing convergence and leading toward a more direct collaboration on the question of human survival. (shrink)

The “Slicing Problem” is a thought experiment that raises questions for substrate-neutral computational theories of consciousness, including those that specify a certain causal structure for the computation like Integrated Information Theory. The thought experiment uses water-based logic gates to construct a computer in a way that permits cleanly slicing each gate and connection in half, creating two identical computers each instantiating the same computation. The slicing can be reversed and repeated via an on/off switch, without changing the amount of matter (...) in the system. The question is what do different computational theories of consciousness believe is happening to the number and nature of individual conscious units as this switch is toggled. Under a token interpretation, there are now two discrete conscious entities; under a type interpretation, there may remain only one. Both interpretations lead to different implications depending on the adopted theoretical stance. Any route taken either allows mechanisms for “consciousness-multiplying exploits” or requires ambiguous boundaries between conscious entities, raising philosophical and ethical questions for theorists to consider. We discuss resolutions under different theories of consciousness for those unwilling to accept consciousness-multiplying exploits. In particular, we specify three features that may help promising physicalist theories to navigate such thought experiments. (shrink)

In a new preface, Peter Singer discusses the prospects for the ethical approach he advocates."--BOOK JACKET.

I advocate Time-Slice Rationality, the thesis that the relationship between two time-slices of the same person is not importantly different, for purposes of rational evaluation, from the relationship between time-slices of distinct persons. The locus of rationality, so to speak, is the time-slice rather than the temporally extended agent. This claim is motivated by consideration of puzzle cases for personal identity over time and by a very moderate form of internalism about rationality. Time-Slice Rationality conflicts with two (...) proposed principles of rationality, Conditionalization and Reflection. Conditionalization is a diachronic norm saying how your current degrees of belief should fit with your old ones, while Reflection is a norm enjoining you to defer to the degrees of belief that you expect to have in the future. But they are independently problematic and should be replaced by improved, time-slice-centric principles. Conditionalization should be replaced by a synchronic norm saying what degrees of belief you ought to have given your current evidence and Reflection should be replaced by a norm which instructs you to defer to the degrees of belief of agents you take to be experts. These replacement principles do all the work that the old principles were supposed to do while avoiding their problems. In this way, Time-Slice Rationality puts the theory of rationality on firmer foundations and yields better norms than alternative, non-time-slice-centric approaches. (shrink)

Recently, some have challenged the idea that there are genuine norms of diachronic rationality. Part of this challenge has involved offering replacements for diachronic principles. Skeptics about diachronic rationality believe that we can provide an error theory for it by appealing to synchronic updating rules that, over time, mimic the behavior of diachronic norms. In this paper, I argue that the most promising attempts to develop this position within the Bayesian framework are unsuccessful. I sketch a new synchronic surrogate that (...) draws upon some of the features of each of these earlier attempts. At the heart of this discussion is the question of what exactly it means to say that one norm is a surrogate for another. I argue that surrogacy, in the given context, can be taken as a proxy for the degree to which formal and traditional epistemology can be made compatible. (shrink)

The Forrest-Armstrong argument, as reconfigured by David Lewis, is a reductio against an unrestricted principle of recombination. There is a gap in the argument which Lewis thought could be bridged by an appeal to recombination. After presenting the argument, I show that no plausible principle of recombination can bridge the gap. But other plausible principles of plenitude can bridge the gap, both principles of plenitude for world contents and principles of plenitude for world structures. I conclude that the (...) Forrest-Armstrong argument, when fortified in one of these ways, demands that unrestricted recombination be rejected. The appropriate restriction comes from a consideration of what world structures are possible. I argue that, although there are too many worlds to form a set, for any world, the individuals at that world do form a set. To defend it I invoke a principle of Limitation of Size together with an iterative conception of structure. (shrink)

Is the quantum state part of the furniture of the world? Einstein found such a position indigestible, but here I present a different understanding of the wavefunction that is easy to stomach. First, I develop the idea that the wavefunction is nomological in nature, showing how the quantum It or Bit debate gets subsumed by the corresponding It or Bit debate about laws of nature. Second, I motivate the nomological view by casting quantum mechanics in a “classical” formalism (Hamilton–Jacobi (...) theory) and classical mechanics in a “quantum” formalism (Koopman–von Neumann theory) and then comparing and contrasting classical and quantum wave functions. I argue that Humeans about laws can treat classical and quantum wave functions on a par and that doing so yields many benefits. (shrink)

_One World Now_ seamlessly integrates major developments of the past decade into Peter Singer's classic text on the ethics of globalization, _One World_. Singer, often described as the world's most influential philosopher, here addresses such essential concerns as climate change, economic globalization, foreign aid, human rights, immigration, and the responsibility to protect people from genocide and crimes against humanity, whatever country they may be in. Every issue is considered from an ethical perspective. This thoughtful and important study poses (...) bold challenges to narrow nationalistic views and offers valuable alternatives to the state-centric approach that continues to dominate ethics and international theory. Singer argues powerfully that we cannot solve the world’s problems at a national level, and shows how we should build on developments that are already transcending national differences. This is an instructive and necessary work that confronts head-on both the perils and the potentials inherent in globalization. (shrink)

If we agree with the notion of a global community, then we must extend our concepts of justice, fairness, and equity beyond national borders by supporting measures to decrease global warming and to increase foreign aid, argues Peter Singer.

This book explores in detail the relation between ontology and ethics in the early work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, notably the _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_ and, to a lesser extent, the _Notebooks 1914-1916_. Self-contained and requiring no prior knowledge of Wittgenstein's thought, it is the first book-length argument that his views on ethics decisively shaped his ontological and semantic thought. The book's main thesis is twofold. It argues that the ontological theory of the _Tractatus_ is fundamentally dependent on its logical and linguistic doctrines: (...) the tractarian world is the world as it appears in language and thought. It also maintains that this interpretation of the ontology of the _Tractatus_ can be argued for not only on systematic grounds, but also via the contents of the ethical theory that it offers. Wittgenstein's views on ethics presuppose that language and thought are but one way in which we interact with reality. Although detailed studies of Wittgenstein's ontology and ethics exist, this book is the first thorough investigation of the relationship between them. As an introduction to Wittgenstein, it sheds new light on an important aspect of his early thought. (shrink)

The one world, one science argument (so named by Rescher) is advanced by Carl Sagan and others to support the thesis that we will be able to learn to converse with intelligent extraterrestrials if and when we encounter them. The prima facie obstacle to extraterrestrial communication is that the aliens’ culture and geography are bound to be so different from ours that we would find it extremely difficult, if not practically impossible, to find a common topic on which we (...) can both converse. Sagan's rebuttal is that we will share mathematics and the laws of physics, these being the same for all intelligent beings regardless of local cultural and geographical variations. I show that this argument fails even if its contentious assumptions about science and the world are granted—that is to say, it fails on uncontentious grounds. 1 OWOS 2 OWOS and Social Constructivism 3 OWOS and Conceptual Relativism 4 OWOS and the Selection Problem 5 The Fundamental Laws Solution 6 The Mathematics Solution 7 The Radio Solution 8 The Common Conditions Solution 9 The Intractability of the Selection Problem 10 The Superfluity of OWOS CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

One of the world’s most influential philosophers here considers the ethical issues surrounding globalization. Peter Singer discusses climate change, the role of the World Trade Organization, human rights and humanitarian intervention, and foreign aid, showing how a global ethic rather than a nationalistic approach can provide illuminating answers to important problems. The book encompasses four main global issues: climate change, the role of the World Trade Organization, human rights and humanitarian intervention, and foreign aid. Singer addresses each (...) vital issue from an ethical perspective and offers alternatives to the state-centric approach that characterizes international theory and relations today. Posing a bold challenge to narrow or nationalistic views, Singer presents a realistic, new way of looking at contemporary global issues—through a prism of ethics. (shrink)

One of our most sophisticated accounts of objective chance in quantum mechanics involves the Deutsch-Wallace theorem, which uses state-space symmetries to justify agents’ use of the Born rule when the quantum state is known. But Wallace argues that this theorem requires an Everettian approach to measurement. I find that this argument is unsound. I demonstrate a counter-example by applying the Deutsch-Wallace theorem to the de Broglie-Bohm pilot-wave theory.

European civilization largely lost its sense of direction after World War One when its humanist consensus, that promoted human betterment, collapsed into a fruitless political opposition between left and right wing extremism. This collapse is here exemplified by the breakdown in relationship between left winger Bertrand Russell and right winger D.H. Lawrence during WW1. However, the real causes of the loss of the humanist consensus are more deep-rooted, as that consensus has its roots in the Renaissance andn Enlightenment movements (...) when the influence of humanist views was at its height. By the late 19th century imperialism and militarism threatened the consensus, and the senseless slaughter of WW1 brought it to an end. The humanist consensus re-emerged post-WW2, largely through American influence, but it has declined since. To restore the consensus, it is argued here that humanism can be strengthened by dualist theory and by a process of contextualization that brings humanity to the fore. By using ‘connecting contexts’ we can open our minds to larger perspectives. In that way, we are collectively more inclined to be optimistic about our prospects. The future of humanity seems to depend on such developments in our critical thinking about ourselves. (shrink)

Reverse from many other theories of globalisation postulating or implying more and more unified world, the author in this paper points out twofoldness of globalisation process. Just in economical view, economy being the sample for globalisation, we can show how the world is not just one but is consisted of many worlds . Equally this stands for political philosophy which speculates about worldly republic or even a worldly state. Again, arguments of moral philosophy stand here for the thesis (...) that modernity has got not just universal moral but also has one ethics reflecting traditions. (shrink)

This is an introduction to world affairs in 1961 and after. It shows in bold outline how our rather small, increasingly overpopulated world has come to be dominated by the two giants powers, the USA and the USSR, with a new class of neutralist ex-colonial countries holding an increasingly important position. While Mr Pearson shows the part played by European or Western influence in creating one world, he also stresses that the outlying parts of the world (...) are now independent and dynamic, and that they have their own personality, aspirations and interests. Mr Pearson begins with the 'European springboard', showing how the Europe of the sixteenth century and after was a kind of powerhouse sending out currents of intellectual and political activity all over the world. Then he goes straight to the USA and the USSR and outlines their development. Next he turns to the time of European dominance and imperialism up to 1914; then to the course and effects of the two world wars; then to the decisive rise of the Asian contenders for great-power status and the decline of colonialism. Final chapters outline the history of the Middle East and comment on the 'lands of the future', especially Africa. (shrink)

This chapter explores one theme that in the author judgment has not received as much sustained attention as it warrants: the distinction between historical and current time slice theories of epistemic justification. It devotes to the hermeneutical tasks of explicating and contextualizing the distinction between historical and current time slice theories. The chapter examines Goldman's longstanding claim that no current time slice theory can possibly do justice to the epistemic role of preservative memory. It argues that a (...) principle governing preservative memory proposed by Goldman. The author argues that a recent attempt by Earl Conee and Richard Feldman to meet Goldman's challenge by providing a current time slice reconstruction of the relevant epistemic phenomena is similarly unsuccessful. The chapter develops argument against current time slice theories, an argument that proceeds from the detailed consideration of certain cases involving temporally extended reasoning. (shrink)

Continental philosophy has long been concerned with the question of transcendence, a fact attributable in part to the historical significance of phenomenology and the legacy of debates surrounding transcendental idealism, the epoche, the status of the world and of other people, and, at least for some philosophers, the question of God. The question takes different forms in Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Levinas, Derrida, Marion, and others working in this tradition, but it remains an abiding concern for each of them. (...) Over time the persistence of this issue has formed a body of work that constitutes a kind of center of gravity—one among several—that characterizes continental thinking. Keywords: Immanence, transcendence, wilderness, abstraction, Henry David Thoreau, Henry Bugbee, Annie Dillard. (shrink)

I argue that the following theses are both popular among evidentialists but also jointly inconsistent with evidentialism: 1) Time-Slice Mentalism: one’s justificational properties at t are grounded only by one’s mental properties at t; 2) Experience Ultimacy: all ultimate evidence is experiential; and 3) Sleep Justification: we have justified beliefs while we have dreamless, nonexperiential sleep. Although I intend for this paper to be a polemic against evidentialists, it can also be viewed as an opportunity for them to clarify (...) their views. Furthermore, the paper is not only relevant to evidentialists. For example, the arguments of this paper could give Time-Slice Mentalists a reason to deny evidentialism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The demand for basic research ethics training has grown considerably in the past few years. Research and education organizations face the challenge of providing this training with limited resources and training tools available. To meet this need, Family Health International (FHI), a U.S.‐based international research organization, recently developed a Research Ethics Training Curriculum (RETC). It was designed as a practical, user‐friendly tool that provides basic, up‐to‐date, standardized training on the ethics of human research. The curriculum can easily be adapted (...) to different audiences and training requirements. The RETC was reviewed by a group of international experts and field tested in five countries. It is available in English, French, and Spanish as a three‐ring binder and CD‐ROM, as well as on the Web. It may be used as either an interactive self‐study program or for group training. (shrink)

This essay appeared as a contribution to a special issue of European Journal of Philosophy to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of P. F. Strawson’s The Bounds of Sense. In that book Strawson asks whether we should agree with Kant's claim, in his Critique of Pure Reason, that there can be only one world. What Kant means by this claim is that the four-dimensional realm that we inhabit must constitute the whole of empirical reality. Strawson gives reasons (...) for challenging this claim. This essay raises the question whether, even if Strawson is right, we may nevertheless have reason to believe that there can be only one world on a broader understanding of ‘world’. The aim is as much to clarify the issue as to settle it, although an attempt is made to motivate the view that there can indeed be only one world on this broader understanding. (shrink)

Sir Julian Huxley (1887-1975), celebrated British scientist and philosopher, strove through most of his career to establish a non-theistic, rationalist belief system to replace Christianity and other world religions. Believing that the twentieth century provided a unique opportunity for this to happen, evolutionary humanism, as he termed his secular faith, gave direction to most of Huxley's diverse activities as a public intellectual. Rooted in evolutionary science, combined with Idealism, liberal values and a profound belief in progress, Huxley's vision was (...) also suffused with a strong desire for unity in human affairs. This paper examines that quest for unity, the purposes it served, and its reception. (shrink)

The paper analyses the role of Albert Schweitzer in the antinuclear movement during the 1950s and 1960s. Having come face to face with the unthinkable threat of nuclear destruction, Schweitzer joins with renowned scientists to raise public awareness about the necessity of banning nuclear testing. Schweitzer applies the view summed up in the concept of reverence for life to a question of global importance, insisting on the personal responsibility of each individual for the present and future generations. His contribution to (...) the antinuclear movement also sheds light on the decisive role of the movement in the formation of the field of bioethics. In conclusion, the authoress points to the need for redefining the origins of bioethics.Das Paper analysiert die Rolle Albert Schweitzers im Rahmen der Anti-Atomkraft-Bewegung der 50er- bzw. 60er-Jahre. Konfrontiert mit einer bis dahin undenkbaren Bedrohung der atomaren Zerstörung gesellt sich Schweitzer den namhaften Wissenschaftlern hinzu, um die Bewusstseinsbildung der Öffentlichkeit für die Unabdingbarkeit einer Atomtestsperre zu stärken. Schweitzer appliziert die im Konzept der Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben resümierte Anschauung auf eine Frage von weltumspannendem Belang, indem er hierbei auf individueller Verantwortung eines jeglichen Einzelnen für gegenwärtige und angehende Generationen beharrt. Sein Beitrag zur Anti-Atomkraft-Bewegung bringt Licht in die ausschlaggebende Rolle dieser Front in der Formung des Bereichs der Bioethik. Abschließend weist die Autorin auf das Erfordernis einer Neubestimmung des Ursprungs der Bioethik. (shrink)