Mind wandering is typically operationalized as task-unrelated thought. Some argue for the need to distinguish between unintentional and intentional mind wandering, where an agent voluntarily shifts attention from task-related to task-unrelated thoughts. We reveal an inconsistency between the standard, task-unrelated thought definition of mind wandering and the occurrence of intentional mind wandering (together with plausible assumptions about tasks and intentions). This suggests that either the standard definition of mind wandering should be rejected or that intentional mind wandering is an incoherent (...) category. Solving this puzzle is critical for advancing theoretical frameworks of mind wandering. (shrink)

This study examines the outcomes of a four-year faculty learning community (FLC) that aimed to transform departmental ethics curriculum by supporting Earth Sciences faculty members as they ethically inquired into their teaching of ethics and refined existing courses in alignment with an Integrated Community-Engaged Learning and Ethical Reflection (ICELER) framework. We present ethnographic case studies that unpack processes through which three faculty members transformed undergraduate courses. We assembled case studies by triangulating interview data, course artifacts, and faculty reflections. We examine (...) how faculty (1) built awareness around teaching ethics, (2) took responsibility for and made judgments about teaching ethics, (3) experimented by designing and implementing ICELER-inspired courses, and (4) interrogated the outcomes of their ethics teaching, utilizing findings to enhance awareness and revise courses. The paper closes by introducing a model detailing how instructors inquire into ethics teaching and how model components might inspire future educational practice and research. (shrink)

Proponents of the utilitarian animal welfare argument (AWA) for veganism maintain that it is reasonable to expect that adopting a vegan diet will decrease animal suffering. In this paper I argue otherwise. I maintain that (i) there are plausible scenarios in which refraining from meat-consumption will not decrease animal suffering; (ii) the utilitarian AWA rests on a false dilemma; and (iii) there are no reasonable grounds for the expectation that adopting a vegan diet will decrease animal suffering. The paper is (...) divided into four sections. In the first, I set out the utilitarian AWA in its original form. I give some background and I distinguish it from other, related arguments. In the second, I discuss the causal impotence objection, a popular objection to the utilitarian AWA. I explain how the objection works by means of a conceptual distinction between consumers and producers. In the third, I explain how proponents of the utilitarian AWA respond to this objection. In particular, I set out in some detail what I call the expected utility response. In the fourth and final section, I use the three objections noted above to explain why I do not find this response convincing. (shrink)

30th Nov. and 1st Dec. 2013 at Kyoto University. Organizer: Takeshi Sakon.

Legg and Hutter, as well as subsequent authors, considered intelligent agents through the lens of interaction with reward-giving environments, attempting to assign numeric intelligence measures to such agents, with the guiding principle that a more intelligent agent should gain higher rewards from environments in some aggregate sense. In this paper, we consider a related question: rather than measure numeric intelligence of one Legg- Hutter agent, how can we compare the relative intelligence of two Legg-Hutter agents? We propose an elegant answer (...) based on the following insight: we can view Legg-Hutter agents as candidates in an election, whose voters are environments, letting each environment vote (via its rewards) which agent (if either) is more intelligent. This leads to an abstract family of comparators simple enough that we can prove some structural theorems about them. It is an open question whether these structural theorems apply to more practical intelligence measures. (shrink)

We define a notion of the intelligence level of an idealized mechanical knowing agent. This is motivated by efforts within artificial intelligence research to define real-number intelligence levels of compli- cated intelligent systems. Our agents are more idealized, which allows us to define a much simpler measure of intelligence level for them. In short, we define the intelligence level of a mechanical knowing agent to be the supremum of the computable ordinals that have codes the agent knows to be codes (...) of computable ordinals. We prove that if one agent knows certain things about another agent, then the former necessarily has a higher intelligence level than the latter. This allows our intelligence no- tion to serve as a stepping stone to obtain results which, by themselves, are not stated in terms of our intelligence notion (results of potential in- terest even to readers totally skeptical that our notion correctly captures intelligence). As an application, we argue that these results comprise evidence against the possibility of intelligence explosion (that is, the no- tion that sufficiently intelligent machines will eventually be capable of designing even more intelligent machines, which can then design even more intelligent machines, and so on). (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Philosophers use historical case studies to support wide-ranging claims about science. This practice is often criticized as problematic. In this paper we suggest that the function of case studies can be understood and justified by analogy to a well-established practice in biology: the investigation of model organisms. We argue that inferences based on case studies are no more problematic than inferences from model organisms to larger classes of organisms in biology. We demonstrate our view in detail by reference to a (...) case study with a long history: Semmelweis’s discovery of the cause of childbed fever. (shrink)

For the last fifty years, the United States healthcare system has done an extremely poor job of delivering healthcare in a just and fair manner. The United States holds the dubious distinction of being the only industrialized nation in the world lacking provisions to ensure universal coverage. We attempt to provide some of the reasons this dysfunctional system has persisted and show that healthcare should not be a commodity. We begin with a brief historical overview of healthcare delivery in the (...) United States since WWII. This is followed by a critical analysis of the for-profit model including reasons to support the view that healthcare should not be a free market commodity. We also demonstrate how special interest groups have been able to win support for their practices based on propaganda rather than fact. A brief analysis of the Affordable Care Act is offered along with critical comments regarding its ineffectiveness. We conclude with a brief overview of international approaches that have resulted in universal coverage and suggest the United States ought to adopt an approach similar to those outlined so that it no longer stands as the only industrialized nation to ignore the glaring problems that exist. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Kant would have endorsed Clifford’s principle. The paper is divided into four sections. In the first, I review Kant’s argument for the practical postulates. In the second, I discuss a traditional objection to the style of argument Kant employs. In the third, I explain how Kant would respond to this objection and how this renders the practical postulates consistent with Clifford’s principle. In the fourth, I introduce positive grounds for thinking that Kant would have (...) endorsed this principle. (shrink)

Humans have always sought to change their environment—building houses, monuments, temples, and roads. In the process, they have remade the fabric of the world into newly functional objects that are also works of art to be admired. In this second edition of his popular Existential Pleasures of Engineering, Samuel Florman explores how engineers think and feel about their profession. A deeply insightful and refreshingly unique text, this book corrects the myth that engineering is cold and passionless. Indeed, Florman celebrates (...) engineering not only crucial and fundamental but also vital and alive he views it as a response to some of our deepest impulses, an endeavor rich in spiritual and sensual rewards. Opposing the "anti-technology" stance, Florman gives readers a practical, creative, and even amusing philosophy of engineering that boasts of pride in his craft. (shrink)

Taking the title of his book from Isaiah Berlin's famous essay distinguishing a negative concept of liberty connoting lack of interference by others from a positive concept involving participation in the political realm, Samuel Fleischacker explores a third definition of liberty that lies between the first two. In Fleischacker's view, Kant and Adam Smith think of liberty as a matter of acting on our capacity for judgment, thereby differing both from those who tie it to the satisfaction of our (...) desires and those who translate it as action in accordance with reason or "will." Integrating the thought of Kant and Smith, and developing his own stand through readings of the Critique of Judgment and The Wealth of Nations, Fleischacker shows how different acting on one's best judgment is from acting on one's desires--how, in particular, good judgment, as opposed to mere desire, can flourish only in favorable social and political conditions. At the same time, exercising judgment is something every individual must do for him- or herself, hence not something that philosophers and politicians who reason better than the rest of us can do in our stead. For this reason advocates of a liberty based on judgment are likely to be more concerned than are libertarians to make sure that government provides people with conditions for the use of their liberty--for example, excellent standards of education, health care, and unemployment insurance--while at the same time promoting a less paternalistic view of government than most of the movements associated for the past thirty years with the political left. (shrink)

O objetivo dessa pesquisa foi investigar a contribuição de Santo Agostinho para o desenvolvimento da Hermenêutica Jurídica, com a compreensão da influência de sobra obra no pensamento jurídico contemporâneo. Desde aspectos biográficos, foram explorados os principais conceitos do pensamento de Santo Agostinho, a partir do diálogo que esses conceitos realizam com a contemporaneidade e com a hermenêutica moderna. A pesquisa foi realizada a partir do método hipotético-dedutivo, a partir da formulação de hipóteses gerais que permitem a obtenção de respostas potencialmente (...) válidas. Quanto aos meios, a pesquisa foi bibliográfica, com o uso da doutrina delimitada ao tema, para o cumprimento dos fins qualitativos. Chegou-se à conclusão de que a obra de Santo Agostinho mantém a sua relevância na temática da hermenêutica, com a aplicação de vários de seus conceitos no campo de atuação e análise da Hermenêutica Jurídica. (shrink)

Adam Smith was a philosopher before he ever wrote about economics, yet until now there has never been a philosophical commentary on the Wealth of Nations . Samuel Fleischacker suggests that Smith's vastly influential treatise on economics can be better understood if placed in the light of his epistemology, philosophy of science, and moral theory. He lays out the relevance of these aspects of Smith's thought to specific themes in the Wealth of Nations , arguing, among other things, that (...) Smith regards social science as an extension of common sense rather than as a discipline to be approached mathematically, that he has moral as well as pragmatic reasons for approving of capitalism, and that he has an unusually strong belief in human equality that leads him to anticipate, if not quite endorse, the modern doctrine of distributive justice. Fleischacker also places Smith's views in relation to the work of his contemporaries, especially his teacher Francis Hutcheson and friend David Hume, and draws out consequences of Smith's thought for present-day political and philosophical debates. The Companion is divided into five general sections, which can be read independently of one another. It contains an index that points to commentary on specific passages in Wealth of Nations . Written in an approachable style befitting Smith's own clear yet finely honed rhetoric, it is intended for professional philosophers and political economists as well as those coming to Smith for the first time. (shrink)

Do we live in a computer simulation? I will present an argument that the results of a certain experiment constitute empirical evidence that we do not live in, at least, one type of simulation. The type of simulation ruled out is very specific. Perhaps that is the price one must pay to make any kind of Popperian progress.

Should the idea of economic man-the amoral and self-interested Homo economicus-determine how we expect people to respond to monetary rewards, punishments, and other incentives? Samuel Bowles answers with a resounding "no." Policies that follow from this paradigm, he shows, may "crowd out" ethical and generous motives and thus backfire. But incentives per se are not really the culprit. Bowles shows that crowding out occurs when the message conveyed by fines and rewards is that self-interest is expected, that the employer (...) thinks the workforce is lazy, or that the citizen cannot otherwise be trusted to contribute to the public good. Using historical and recent case studies as well as behavioral experiments, Bowles shows how well-designed incentives can crowd in the civic motives on which good governance depends. (shrink)

Modern notions of empathy often celebrate its ability to bridge divides, to unite humankind. But how do we square this with the popular view that we can never truly comprehend the experience of being someone else? In this book, Samuel Fleischacker delves into the work of Adam Smith to draw out an understanding of empathy that respects both personal difference and shared humanity. After laying out a range of meanings for the concept of empathy, Fleischacker proposes that what Smith (...) called “sympathy” is very much what we today consider empathy. Smith’s version has remarkable value, as his empathy calls for entering into the perspective of another—a uniquely human feat that connects people while still allowing them to define their own distinctive standpoints. After discussing Smith’s views in relation to more recent empirical and philosophical studies, Fleischacker shows how turning back to Smith promises to enrich, clarify, and advance our current debates about the meaning and uses of empathy. (shrink)

Over the past several years, there has been a significant increase in the number of scientific articles with two or more authors claiming “Equal Co-First Authorship”. This study provides a critical background to ECFA designations, discusses likely causes of its increased use, and explores arguments for and against the practice. Subsequently, it presents the results of a qualitative study that sought the opinion of 19 authors listed among equal first authors of recent publications in leading scientific journals about ECFA designations. (...) Results show that circumstances leading to ECFA designations vary significantly from each other. While the development of policies for these situations would not be easy, participants suggested that the lack of clear and consistent policies regarding the attribution and evaluation of ECFA contributes to tensions amongst ECFA authors and obscures their preferred attributions of credit. (shrink)

I present an argument that for any computer-simulated civilization we design, the mathematical knowledge recorded by that civilization has one of two limitations. It is untrustworthy, or it is weaker than our own mathematical knowledge. This is paradoxical because it seems that nothing prevents us from building in all sorts of advantages for the inhabitants of said simulation.

The Resource-Based View (RBV) has been instrumental in shaping strategic management theory by underscoring the significance of a firm's unique, valuable, and hard-to-copy internal resources in securing competitive advantage. However, the conventional RBV framework, with its emphasis on static, possession-oriented resource conceptualization, falls short in addressing the dynamic and relational nature of resources in contemporary business environments. This paper aims to bridge this gap by introducing a processual perspective to the RBV, grounded in process philosophy. In this study, we delve (...) into the philosophical underpinnings of RBV, critiquing its static ontological assumptions and proposing a shift towards a more dynamic and relational ontology. Drawing from the insights of process philosophers such as Whitehead and Bergson, and differentiating between 'strong' and 'weak' process views, we reconceptualize resources not as static entities, but as dynamic elements continually constituted and reconstituted within networks of relationships and ongoing organizational processes. This approach allows for a more nuanced understanding of resources, recognizing their evolutionary and interconnected nature. Our methodology involves a rigorous theoretical analysis and synthesis of existing RBV literature, coupled with philosophical inquiry to construct a novel framework for resource conceptualization. We demonstrate how this reconceptualization offers fresh insights into strategic management, particularly in formulating strategies that leverage the dynamic interplay of resources and in understanding the boundary between internal and external resources. This paper contributes to the RBV literature by offering a process-oriented perspective that aligns more closely with the complexities of modern strategic landscapes. By challenging and extending traditional RBV assumptions, we pave the way for future empirical research and theoretical development in strategic management, highlighting the significance of process philosophy in enriching management theories. (shrink)

In their thought-provoking paper, Legg and Hutter consider a certain abstrac- tion of an intelligent agent, and define a universal intelligence measure, which assigns every such agent a numerical intelligence rating. We will briefly summarize Legg and Hutter’s paper, and then give a tongue-in-cheek argument that if one’s goal is to become more intelligent by cultivating music appreciation, then it is bet- ter to use classical music (such as Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven) than to use more recent pop music. The (...) same argument could be adapted to other media: books beat films, card games beat first-person shooters, parables beat dissertations, etc. We leave it to the reader to decide whether this argument tells us something about classical music, something about Legg-Hutter intelligence, or something about both. (shrink)

Can you find an xy-equation that, when graphed, writes itself on the plane? This idea became internet-famous when a Wikipedia article on Tupper’s self-referential formula went viral in 2012. Under scrutiny, the question has two flaws: it is meaningless (it depends on fonts) and it is trivial. We fix these flaws by formalizing the problem.

Este trabajo examina algunos ensayos políticos de David Hume para sostener que su estrategia escéptica de moderación de las facciones políticas no consiste solamente en el examen de los argumentos, de estas sino también en el despliegue de maniobras retóricas distintivamente escépticas. Con ellas, logra exponer los intereses reales que originan las posiciones partidistas y disolver las doctrinas mediante las cuales las facciones atraen a sus seguidores. La estrategia constituye una forma de acción política comprometida que se apoya en su (...) ciencia de la naturaleza humana. (shrink)

Smiles provide information about a social partner’s affect and intentions during social interaction. Although always encountered within a specific situation, the influence of contextual information on smile evaluation has not been widely investigated. Moreover, little is known about the reciprocal effect of smiles on evaluations of their accompanying situations. In this research, we assessed how different smile types and situational contexts affected participants’ social evaluations. In Study 1, 85 participants rated reward, affiliation, and dominance smiles embedded within either enjoyable, polite, (...) or negative (unpleasant) situations. Context had a strong effect on smile ratings, such that smiles in enjoyable situations were rated as more genuine and joyful, as well as indicating less superiority than those in negative situations. In Study 2, 200 participants evaluated the situations that these smiles were perceived within (rather than the smiles themselves). Although situations paired with reward (vs. affiliation) smiles tended to be rated more positively, this effect was absent for negative situations. Ultimately, the findings point toward a reciprocal relationship between smiles and contexts, whereby the face influences evaluations of the situation and vice versa. (shrink)

Samuel R. Buss and Aleksandar Ignjatović. Unprovability of Consistency Statements in Fragments of Bounded Arithmetic.

Knowledge of mechanisms is critical for causal reasoning. We contrasted two possible organizations of causal knowledge—an interconnected causal network, where events are causally connected without any boundaries delineating discrete mechanisms; or a set of disparate mechanisms—causal islands—such that events in different mechanisms are not thought to be related even when they belong to the same causal chain. To distinguish these possibilities, we tested whether people make transitive judgments about causal chains by inferring, given A causes B and B causes C, (...) that A causes C. Specifically, causal chains schematized as one chunk or mechanism in semantic memory led to transitive causal judgments. On the other hand, chains schematized as multiple chunks led to intransitive judgments despite strong intermediate links. Normative accounts of causal intransitivity could not explain these intransitive judgments. (shrink)

Two of the lead articles in this issue examine the emerging practice of organ procurement by normothermic regional perfusion (NRP) in terms of whether or not these patients are “dead” at the time t...

This paper proposes an original ubuntu-inspired account of human-animal moral status for engaging the problem of belongingness—the ethico-ecological community view. This account embodies two integrated features: locatedness and relationality. While locatedness prompts us to attend to the embeddedness of beings in the built and natural environment, relationality allows the discussion to focus on human-nonhuman interdependencies. I argue that a deep sense of both features prompts us to move the moral status conversation away from capacities to a non-capacity-based approach, thereby helping (...) to disrupt unjustified human moral superiority over animals in a way that commits us to environmental flourishing. (shrink)

Human ontogeny has been shaped through evolution, resulting in markers of physical, cognitive, and social development that are widely shared and often used to demarcate the lifespan. Yet, development is demonstrably biocultural and strongly influenced by context. As a result, emic age categories can vary in duration and composition, constituted by both common physical markers as well as culturally meaningful indicators, with implications for our understanding of the evolution of human life history. Semi-structured group interviews (_n_ = 24) among Sidama (...) adults and children, as well as individual interviews with children (_n_ = 30), were used to identify age categories across the lifespan and to specifically investigate acquisition of sociocultural skills and cognitive development. Ten major age categories were identified, covering birth through death. These largely map onto patterning of human universals, but specific cultural beliefs and behaviors were indicated as important markers of development. Adults and children are oriented toward the dynamic relationships between physical development and acquisition of skills tied to social and cultural success. Culture, ecology, and ontogeny are co-determinants of human development, and the interactions among them should be considered in studies examining human life history and its evolution. (shrink)

Spinoza'sEthicspromises a path for sweeping personal transformations, but his accounts face two sets of overarching problems. The first concerns his peculiar metaphysics of action and agents; the second his apparent neglect of the very category of persons. Although these are somewhat distinct concerns, they have a common, unified solution in Spinoza's system that is philosophically rich and interesting, both in its own right and in relation to contemporary work in moral philosophy. After presenting the core of the problem facing Spinoza's (...) action theory, I turn to his overlooked account of selves, one that can be illuminated by contemporary work on so-called deep-self theories. I then show how Spinoza's distinctive account of selves prevents his action theory from collapsing into metaphysical incoherence, and conclude with an implication for Spinoza's broader account of transformation. (shrink)

In this paper, I address human-induced environmental ills we face using an ubuntu-inspired ethical lens. I follow ubuntu scholars to stress the significance for moral agents to embody virtues. Virtue development is essential to carry out obligations and address human impacts on the environment. Thaddeus Metz, in particular, has drawn attention to how embodying ubuntu virtues of humility and friendliness can prompt moral agents to be other-regarding. The view I developed in this paper differs from his ubuntu-inspired account in at (...) least two significant ways. First, humans cannot be in harmonious relationships with some species such as Black Mambas, Hyenas and sea urchins even if they can interact. Second, we must acknowledge the consequentialist dimension of ubuntu ethics and prioritise the different aspects of ubuntu ‘mixed’ ethics, ranking them to offer possibilities for a more realistic recommendation to change our moral life. This paper demonstrates that the three dimensions of ubuntu ‘mixed’ ethics are fundamental because we need to think about moral consequences, right action and our virtue in accounting for our actions. (shrink)

The view of Karl Marx as “revolutionary” endorsing a violent overturn of the capitalist system is not only standard textbook fare filtering through to popular opinion, but also often found in professional accounts. The perspective on Marx as “revolutionary” is unconvincing. Marx’s evolutionism, insofar as it relates to prominent features of advanced capitalism, implies a powerful laissez-faire bias reflecting primarily concern lest reformist measures to correct perceived injustices in the capitalist-exchange system assure its permanence, but also price-theoretic arguments for non-intervention. (...) Secondly, Marx’s evolutionism extends to the stage following a proletarian political takeover, and includes allowance for a residual capitalist sector, for income inequality, and even for compensation of expropriated property owners. And, thirdly, the proletarian takeover itself might, for Marx, occur by way of democratic voting enabled by extensions of the franchise accorded by the capitalist state itself responding to pressures generated by capitalist development. These three themes render the evolutionist perspective overwhelming. (shrink)

L’objectif de cet article est de revenir sur le concept de lecture dans _Temps et récit _de Paul Ricœur, à travers les notions de triple mimèsis et de refiguration, en lien avec un cheminement antérieur concernant la question de l’herméneutique et la tradition phénoménologique. Tout en étant tributaire des développements en herméneutique philosophique depuis Gadamer, la lecture, chez Ricœur, fonctionnerait comme un paradigme permettant de relier les plans de l’interprétation et de la réception constitutifs de l’expérience esthétique. Par-là se jouent (...) des analyses venant complexifier un cadre philosophique initial et rendant possible une extension du paradigme donné à des domaines non-verbaux ou non-linguistiques. Cet article s’articule autour de deux parties. Dans une première partie, il s’agit de préciser le cadre général de l’herméneutique ricœurienne, la réception qui a été faite de _Temps et récit_, et le caractère ouvert du rapport entre refiguration et temporalité. Dans une second... (shrink)