An Interdisciplinary Approach to Cognitive Modelling presents a new approach to cognition that challenges long-held views. It systematically develops a broad-based framework to model cognition, which is mathematically equivalent to the emerging 'quantum-like modelling' of the human mind. The book argues that a satisfactory physical and philosophical basis of such an approach is missing, a particular issue being the application of quantization to the mind for which there is no empirical evidence as yet. In response to this issue, the book (...) adopts a COM (classical optical modelling) approach, broad-based but mathematically equivalent to quantum-like modelling while avoiding its problematic features. It presents a philosophically informed and empirically motivated mathematical model of cognition, mainly concerning decision making processes. It also deals with applications to different areas of the social sciences. It will be of interest to scholars and research students interested in the mathematical modelling of cognition and decision making, and also interdisciplinary researchers interested in broader issues of cognition. (shrink)

Einstein regarded as one of the triumphs of his 1915 theory of gravity - the general theory of relativity - that it vindicated the action-reaction principle, while Newtonian mechanics as well as his 1905 special theory of relativity supposedly violated it. In this paper we examine why Einstein came to emphasise this position several years after the development of general relativity. Several key considerations are relevant to the story: the connection Einstein originally saw between Mach's analysis of inertia and both (...) the equivalence principle and the principle of general covariance, the waning of Mach's influence owing to de Sitter's 1917 results, and Einstein's detailed correspondence with Moritz Schlick in 1920. (shrink)

Religion and the external world -- Projection, religion, and the external world -- The senses, reason and the imagination -- Realism, meaning and justification : the external world and religious belief -- Modality, projection and realism -- 'Our profound ignorance' : causal realism, and the failure to detect necessity -- Spreading the mind : projection, necessity and realism -- Into the labyrinth : persons, modality, and Hume's undoing -- Value, projection, and realism -- Gilding : projection, value and secondary qualities (...) -- The gold : good, evil, belief and desire -- The golden : relational values, realism and a moral sense. (shrink)

Advocates have sought to prove that underdetermination obtains because all theories have empirical equivalents. But algorithms for generating empirical equivalents simply exchange underdetermination for familiar philosophical chestnuts, while the few convincing examples of empirical equivalents will not support the desired sweeping conclusions. Nonetheless, underdetermination does not depend on empirical equivalents: our warrant for current theories is equally undermined by presently unconceived alternatives as well-confirmed merely by the existing evidence, so long as this transient predicament recurs for each theory and body (...) of evidence we consider. The historical record supports the claim that this recurrent, transient underdetermination predicament is our own. (shrink)

Originally published in 1969. This book explains what is wrong with the traditional methodology of "inductive" reasoning and shows that the alternative scheme of reasoning associated with Whewell, Pierce and Popper can give the scientist a useful insight into the way he thinks.

Engineering is 'the people-serving profession'. The work of engineers involves interaction with clients, other engineers, and the public at large. More than any other profession, their work also directly involves and affects the environment. This book makes the case that engineers have special professional obligations to protect and enhance the environment, and the authors - one, an engineer and the other, a philosopher - seek to provide an ethical basis for these obligations. In exploring these ethical issues, the authors aim (...) to show that engineers make a difference. The text opens with a series of case studies in which engineers face complex and challenging decisions about the environment. Succeeding chapters examine different ideas about environmental ethics for engineers, including professional codes and both modern and historical discussions of environmental responsibility. The book concludes with a collection of readings that complement the text. Students, as well as practising engineers, will find much of interest in this well-argued and thought-provoking book. (shrink)

Knowing Persons is an original study of Plato's account of personhood. For Plato, embodied persons are images of a disembodied ideal. The ideal person is a knower. Hence, the lives of embodied persons need to be understood according to Plato's metaphysics of imagery.For Gerson, Plato's account of embodied personhood is not accurately conflated with Cartesian dualism. Plato's dualism is more appropriately seen in the contrast between the ideal disembodied person and the embodied one than in the contrast between mind or (...) soul and body.This study argues that Plato's analysis of personhood is intended to cohere with his two-world metaphysics as well as a radical separation of knowledge and belief. Gerson demonstrates that Plato's account of persons plays a key role not just in his theory of mind, but in his theory of knowledge, his metaphysics, and his ethics. A proper understanding of Plato's account of persons must therefore place it in the context of his doctrines in these areas. Knowing Persons fills a significant gap by showing the way to such an understanding. (shrink)

Berent (this issue) critiques one of the three main proposals put forward by Carruthers (this issue), who suggests that cognitive scientists are biased against innateness-claims by the tacit assumptions of the mentalizing faculty. Berent proposes, instead, that the bias results from dissonance produced by a conflict between our innate dualism and our innate essentialism. The present response raises a number of difficulties for her argument.

While discussions of the ethics of the placebo have usually dealt with their use in a research context, the authors address here the question of the placebo in clinical practice. It is argued, firstly, that the placebo can be an effective treatment. Secondly, it is demonstrated that its use does not always entail deception. Finally guidelines are presented according to which the placebo may be used for clinical purposes. It is suggested that in select cases, use of the placebo may (...) even be morally imperative. The argument is illustrated by three case vignettes. (shrink)

In the Ukrainian reality of the twenty-first century. The search for the dominant spiritual and national identity is one of the leading places. The dialogue between Catholicism, which is represented by the spiritual phenomenon of the Vatican, and by Ukraine, one of the countries not only of the Greek Catholic, but also of the Orthodox tradition, with a distinct national-cultural specificity, is, in our opinion, the semiosphere where the answers to many challenges of the present and the future. But such (...) answers are difficult to find if the sine era et studio does not analyze the key trends in the development of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by examining it, without looking back at the stereotypes of the identification of Ukrainian spiritual thinking and being with the imperially secular tradition. The most suitable method for this task is the comparative methodology, which examines the basic ideological characteristics of the ideological world of Orthodox thinkers - from Ivan Vyshensky and to thinkers and spiritual prophets of the Second Cathedral of the UAOC. (shrink)

The aim is to uncover the foundations of quine's distinction between definite singular terms and general terms in predicative position, And hence of the general schema of predication, 'fx'. While each term in such a predication specifies its own item, The items so specified exhibit a typical difference exemplified in the basic case by the difference between spatio-Temporal particulars and properties of such particulars. A generally consequential difference of role is that while both terms are applied to the item of (...) lower type, Only the definite singular term has the function of identifying it. (shrink)

The normative significance of proximity in ethics is considered, giving an overview of the contemporary debates about proximity in ethics and focusing on three main perspectives that take proximity to have normative significance. The first perspective is represented by meta-ethical positions, where a basic moral claim is said to originate from an irreducible, particular and unique otherness that shows up in human vulnerability. The second perspective presents a psychologically and philosophically based analysis of human emotions, which is taken to form (...) a basis for rudimentary moral sensitivity and care. The third version of an ethics of proximity claims that personal relationships and partiality overrride impartialist and universalist ethical considerations. On the basis of this analysis, the sources of normativity and the essence of proximity as a normative consideration are elaborated. Finally, the relevance of an ethics of proximity to professional ethics in healthcare is discussed. From an ethics of proximity, it might be argued that institutions must attempt to organise medical care and nursing care so that a certain partiality and patient-centred care might be favoured and trump distributivist considerations of justice in healthcare. (shrink)

This article examines the origin of experiential organization, especially whether it is salient or selective. Aron Gurwitsch believes it is salient and William James that it is selective. I argue that Gurwitsch is right, and recount his argument and his critique of James, but I also pose my own critique and critical questions on the issue. -/- Gurwitsch's argument attempts to show that the organization of consciousness is not arbitrary or merely selected in some way by the subject. He claims (...) that when consciousness is organized it is found as already organized. -/- This is important for Gurwitsch's philosophical system because if he can establish that consciousness is always originally organized, then his famous claim that the theme, thematic-field, margin structure of consciousness is an invariant patterning impervious to the subject's whim, mood, or possible noetic training, is protected at the very start. (shrink)

Largely through trial and error, filmmakers have developed engaging techniques that capture our sensations, thoughts, and feelings. Philosophers and film theorists have thought deeply about the nature and impact of these techniques, yet few scientists have delved into empirical analyses of our movie experience-or what Arthur P. Shimamura has coined "psychocinematics." This edited volume introduces this exciting field by bringing together film theorists, philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists to consider the viability of a scientific approach to our movie experience.

1. The Tractatus doctrine of saying and showing In a letter to Russell dated 19.4.1919, written shortly after he had finished the Tractatus, Wittgenstein told Russell that the main contention of the book, to which all else, including the account of logic, is subsidiary, ‘is the theory of what can be expressed (gesagt) by prop[osition]s -- i.e. by language -- (and, which comes to the same, what can be thought) and what cannot be expressed by prop[osition]s, but only shown (gezeigt); (...) which I believe is the cardinal problem of philosophy’ (CL 68). This was emphasized in both preface and conclusion of the book. The preface observes that the whole sense of the book can be summed up in the following words: ‘what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence’ (TLP p.3). The conclusion of the book (TLP 7) simply repeats this. The preceding three remarks, however, are noteworthy. They make three claims. First, ‘There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical’ (TLP 6.522). This reiterates the leitmotif of the book, namely that there are things that cannot, by the very nature of representation, be said. But though they cannot be said, they are shown by features of the relevant system of representation. Secondly, the correct method in philosophy would really be to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. empirical propositions that have nothing to do with philosophy, and then, when someone wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give meaning to certain signs in his propositions (TLP 6.53). This method, of course, is not the method that has been followed throughout the book, which consists almost exclusively of modal assertions concerning what must, can or cannot be thus and so in reality, in language and in the relation between language and reality.. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the metaphysical ethics of Emmanuel Levinas captures some essential moral intuitions that are central to health care. However, there is an ongoing discussion about the relevance of ethical metaphysics for normative ethics and in particular on the question of the relationship between justice and individualized care. In this paper I take part in this debate and I argue that Levinas' idea of an ethics of the Other that guides politics and justice can shed important (...) light on issues that are central to priorities in health care. In fact, the ethics of Levinas in seeking the foundation of normativity itself, captures the ethical coreand central values of health care. (shrink)

Amazing as it may be, to this day few commentaries on the treatises of Plotinus' Enneads are written. The classic ninth treatise, for example, has hardly been studied. This treatise, however, is of vital importance, because it is in this work that for the first time in the Enneads, the One in its superform emerges and Plotinus dwells on the remarkable phenomenon of a 'mystical union' of the soul with the One. A thorough analysis of the argument and its development (...) next to philosophical and philo-logical support will be welcome to any reader of this in-triguing but difficult treatise. These aims are pursued in the main part of Meijer's work, the commentary. The first part of the book, preceding the commentary, examines the philosophical history of the concept of the One and its status in the first eight treatises. This new approach to the problem of the One leads to striking conclusions. It appears that while Plotinus was writing these first eight treatises, the concept of the One developed from that of a Supreme Entity of a Mesoplatonian character, viz. the upper part of the mind, to One of a Superone above mind. This casts an entirely new light on the position of the One in Plotinus and that of the ninth treatise itself. The third part not only examines the mystical union as pictured in the ninth treatise, but also provides a full scale discussion of Plotinus' descriptions of this union in his en-tire work. The degree of unification, viz. the question whether a part of the mystic self remains intact during the unification, is a matter of vigorous scholarly debate. Meijer shows that, in spite of some inconsistencies in his doctrine about the union, one must accept that Plotinus basically considered the union as a complete absorption of the soul into the Supreme Entity. (shrink)

In debate on faith and reason two opposing positions have dominated the field. The first position asserts that faith and reason are commensurable and the second position denies that assertion. Those holding to the first position differ among themselves as to the extent of the compatibility between faith and reason, most adherents relegating the compatibility to the ‘preambles of faith’ over against the ‘articles of faith’ . Few have maintained complete harmony between reason and faith, i.e. a religious belief within (...) the realm of reason alone. The second position divides into two sub-positions: that which asserts that faith is opposed to reason , placing faith in the area of irrationality; and that which asserts that faith is higher than reason, is transrational. Calvin and Barth assert that a natural theology is inappropriate because it seeks to meet unbelief on its own ground . Revelation, however, is ‘self-authenticating’, ‘carrying with it its own evidence’. 1 We may call this position the ‘transrationalist’ view of faith. Faith is not so much against reason as above it and beyond its proper domain. Actually, Kierkegaard shows that the two sub-positions are compatible. He holds both that faith is above reason and against reason . The irrationalist and transrationalist positions are sometimes hard to separate in the incommensurabilist's arguments. At least, it seems that faith gets such a high value that reason comes off looking not simply inadequate but culpable. To use reason where faith claims the field is not only inappropriate but irreverent or faithless. (shrink)

Oestrogen treatment for girls, to prevent psychosocial problems due to extreme tallness, has been available for almost 50 years but uncertainty about its position prevails. The ethical problems of this treatment are focused on in this paper. After a brief overview on historical and medical aspects, ethical issues such as the general justification of oestrogen treatment, evaluation of its success and ethical concerns related to research in this subject are dealt with in detail.

In this paper, I argue that AI literacy should be added to the list of primary goods developed by political philosopher John Rawls. Primary goods are the necessary resources all citizens need to exercise their two moral powers, namely their sense of justice and their sense of the good. These goods are advantageous for citizens since without them citizens will not be able to fully develop their moral powers. I claim the lack of AI literacy impacts citizens’ ability to exercise (...) their sense of justice and their sense of the good. Without citizens having the ability to understand how AI technology works – including being aware of the social and political implications and the limits and possibilities of this technology broadly speaking – this could impact their ability to participate in a free, equal and fair society and their ability to carry out their conception of the good. Thus this paper is a call for AI literacy to be regarded as a basic good in a liberal constitutional democracy in order for citizens to be able to exercise their freedom and equality. (shrink)

The terms “competency” and “decision making capacity” are often used interchangeably in the medical setting. Although competency is a legal determination made by judges, “competency” assessments are frequently requested of psychiatrists who are called to consult on hospitalised patients who refuse medical treatment. In these situations, the bioethicist is called to consult frequently as well, sometimes as a second opinion or “tie breaker”. The psychiatric determination of competence, while a clinical phenomenon, is based primarily in legalism and can be quite (...) different from the bioethics approach. This discrepancy highlights the difficulties that arise when a patient is found to be “competent” by psychiatry but lacking in DMC by bioethics. Using a case, this dilemma is explored and guidance for reconciling the opinions of two distinct clinical specialties is offered. (shrink)