Two recent hypotheses have proposed that non‐green plant colouration evolved as a defence against herbivores, either as protective colouration promoting handicap signals indicating plant fitness or by undermining their crypsis. The handicap hypothesis posits a co‐evolutionary process between plants and herbivores, whereas the anti‐crypsis hypothesis suggests that an arms race between insects and plants is the evolutionary mechanism. Both explanations assume that insects are the evolutionary origin causing plants' colouration. Here, we propose a different hypothesis, termed the “Defence Indication hypothesis”. (...) This idea focuses on the multiple protective functions of anthocyanins and carotenoids as pigments, and suggests that plant colouration evolved primarily in response to various stressors. Because pigments and defensive compounds share a common biosynthesis, the production of pigments also provides elevated defensive strengths against herbivores, a process termed priming. In effect, the Defence Indication hypothesis predicts that pleiotropic effects of the pigments and, more generally, plants' shared defence responses, explain why insects might react to plant colouration. BioEssays 28:65–71, 2006. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Several philosophers have expressed concerns with some recent uses of the term ‘cognition’. Underlying a number of these concerns are claims that cognition is only located in the brain and that no compelling case has been made to use ‘cognition’ in any way other than as a cause of behavior that is representational in nature. These concerns center on two primary misapprehensions: First, that some adherents of dynamical cognitive science think DCS implies the thesis of extended cognition and the rejection (...) of representation, and second, that cognition is mistakenly equated with behavior. We make three points in response to these claims: First, there is no thoroughly entrenched conception of cognition as distinct from behavior that is being illegitimately disregarded. Second, we present Shapiro’s exposition of dynamical systems theory as revealing a misunderstanding of the way that dynamical models are used in explanations of cognition and related phenomena. Accordingly, a proper conception of DCS’s methods facilitates an appreciation of extended cognition as a legitimate phenomenon of scientific investigation. Finally, we demonstrate that practicing cognitive scientists and psychologists are far more pluralistic in the phenomena they apply ‘cognition’ to than is suggested by some. At the heart of our disagreement with these concerned folks is that although we think it likely that some cognitive phenomena are representational, non-extended, and only in-between the ears, we also think there are good conceptual and empirical reasons to believe that many cognitive phenomena are non-representational, extended, and not confined to the brain. (shrink)

Intent and mitigating circumstances play a central role in moral and legal assessments in large-scale industrialized societies. Al- though these features of moral assessment are widely assumed to be universal, to date, they have only been studied in a narrow range of societies. We show that there is substantial cross-cultural variation among eight traditional small-scale societies (ranging from hunter-gatherer to pastoralist to horticulturalist) and two Western societies (one urban, one rural) in the extent to which intent and mitigating circumstances influence (...) moral judgments. Although participants in all societies took such factors into account to some degree, they did so to very different extents, varying in both the types of considerations taken into account and the types of violations to which such considerations were applied. The particular patterns of assessment characteristic of large-scale industrialized societies may thus reflect relatively recently culturally evolved norms rather than inherent features of human moral judgment. (shrink)

Scientific knowledge relies heavily on models, shaped by simplifying assumptions, with common categories being abstraction and idealization. This article aims to expose conceptual challenges inherent in conventional interpretations of these concepts, particularly in their practical application to scientific modeling. The primary hurdle emerges in applying these categories to real­world instances of scientific modeling, which we illustrate with examples of non­causal explanations. Key issues revolve around (i) the ambiguous distinction between abstraction and idealization and (ii) the application of the simplifying assumption (...) of abstraction. Our hypothesis posits that non­causal explanations face unintelligibility due to an unclear understanding of the role of simplifying assumptions in them. To test this, we analyze selected examples, ranging from (toy­)examples to real­world instances, scrutinizing the alignment with the standard notions of abstraction and idealization. Throughout, we investigate the influence of simplifying assumptions on these explanations, assessing their adherence or deviation from conventional concepts. (shrink)

This book is a cultural phenomenology of doing physics. It describes the ways physicists actually do their work--their motives, and their ways of making sense of the world--so that outsiders can understand it. Martin H. Krieger explains that physicists employ a small number of everyday notions to get at the world experimentally and conceptually.

We say that a Hausdorff locale is compactly generated if it is the colimit of the diagram of its compact sublocales connected by inclusions. We show that this is the case if and only if the natural map of its frame of opens into the second Lawson dual is an isomorphism. More generally, for any Hausdorff locale, the second dual of the frame of opens gives the frame of opens of the colimit. In order to arrive at this conclusion, we (...) generalize the Hofmann–Mislove–Johnstone theorem and some results regarding the patch construction for stably locally compact locales. (shrink)

This volume is a wonderful introduction to Foucault and a testimony to the deep humanity of the man himself.

In this paper, we formulate a procedure for assessing reasoning as it is expressed in natural arguments. The procedure is a specification of one of the three aspects of argumentation assessment distinguished in the Comprehensive Assessment Procedure for Natural Argumentation that makes use of the argument categorisation framework of the Periodic Table of Arguments. The theoretical framework and practical application of both the CAPNA and the PTA are described, as well as the evaluation procedure that combines the two. The procedure (...) is illustrated through an evaluation of the reasoning of two example arguments from a recently published text. (shrink)

It is widely held that intuitive dualism—an implicit default mode of thought that takes minds to be separable from bodies and capable of independent existence—is a human universal. Among the findings taken to support universal intuitive dualism is a pattern of evidence in which “psychological” traits (knowledge, desires) are judged more likely to continue after death than bodily or “biological” traits (perceptual, physiological, and bodily states). Here, we present cross-cultural evidence from six study populations, including non-Western societies with diverse belief (...) systems, that shows that while this pattern exists, the overall pattern of responses nonetheless does not support intuitive dualism in afterlife beliefs. Most responses of most participants across all cultures tested were not dualist. While our sample is in no way intended to capture the full range of human societies and afterlife beliefs, it captures a far broader range of cultures than in any prior study, and thus puts the case for afterlife beliefs as evidence for universal intuitive dualism to a strong test. Based on these findings, we suggest that while dualist thinking is a possible mode of thought enabled by evolved human psychology, such thinking does not constitute a default mode of thought. Rather, our data support what we will call intuitive materialism—the view that the underlying intuitive systems for reasoning about minds and death produce as a default judgment that mental states cease to exist with bodily death. (shrink)

How do historians understand the minds, motivations and intentions of historical agents? What might evolutionary and cognitive theorizing contribute to this work? What is the relation between natural and cultural history? Historians have been intrigued by such questions ever since publication in 1859 of Darwin's The Origin of Species, itself the historicization of biology. This interest reemerged in the latter part of the twentieth century among a number of biologists, philosophers and historians, reinforced by the new interdisciplinary finding of cognitive (...) scientists about the universal capacities of and constraints upon human minds. The studies in this volume, primarily by historians of religion, continue this discussion by focusing on historical examples of ancient religions as well as on the theoretical promises and problems relevant to that study. (shrink)

In this paper, we use a pseudo-algorithmic procedure for assessing an AI-generated text. We apply the Comprehensive Assessment Procedure for Natural Argumentation (CAPNA) in evaluating the arguments produced by an Artificial Intelligence text generator, GPT-3, in an opinion piece written for the Guardian newspaper. The CAPNA examines instances of argumentation in three aspects: their Process, Reasoning and Expression. Initial Analysis is conducted using the Argument Type Identification Procedure (ATIP) to establish, firstly, that an argument is present and, secondly, its specific (...) type in terms of the argument classification framework of the Periodic Table of Arguments (PTA). Procedural Questions are then used to test the acceptability of the argument in each of the three aspects. The analysis shows that while the arguments put forward by the AI text generator are varied in terms of their type and follow familiar patterns of human reasoning, they contain obvious weaknesses. From this we can conclude that the automated generation of persuasive, well-reasoned argumentation is a far more difficult task than the generation of meaningful language, and that if AI systems producing arguments are to be persuasive, they require a method of checking the plausibility of their own output. (shrink)

Die Philosophie Karl Leonhard Reinholds (1757-1823) findet heute vermehrt Beachtung. Während dieser Denker lange Zeit als Popularisator Kants, als Vorläufer Fichtes oder als tatsachenphilosophischer Antipode Schellings und Hegels wahrgenommen wurde und gemeinhin im Ruf eines unsteten und unselbständigen Geistes stand, ist seit einigen Jahrzehnten eine Gegentendenz feststellbar: Reinholds Denkentfaltung wird zunehmend in ihrem gesamten Umfang sowie als eigenwilliger und innovativer Ansatz innerhalb der postkantischen Systemphilosophie zur Kenntnis genommen. Mehr und mehr wird anerkannt, dass Reinhold entscheidende Anstöße zur Entstehung des deutschen (...) Idealismus gegeben und diese Strömung zugleich auf der Grundlage von Einsichten, die in die Richtung der Phänomenologie und Sprachphilosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts weisen, kritisiert hat. Die in diesem Band vereinigten Beiträge gehen auf die I. Internationale Reinhold-Tagung zurück, die vom 14. bis 18. März 1998 in Bad Homburg stattgefunden hat. Sie geben systematische Fragestellungen und entwicklungsgeschichtliche Kontexte aus Reinholds kantischer Phase der Elementarphilosophie, aus der Periode seiner Zusammenarbeit mit Fichte und Jacobi sowie aus seiner sprachphilosophisch orientierten Spätzeit wieder. Alles in allem spiegeln sie das gegenwärtige Bedürfnis, Reinhold zu entdecken, sein Denken und Schaffen in seinen Wandlungen und in seiner thematischen Breite aufzuarbeiten und nachzuvollziehen. Zudem sind sie repräsentativ für die aktuell bestehenden vielfältigen Zugänge zu diesem produktiven Philosophen. (shrink)

Questions about the validity of eye fixations in the blocks task as a memory indicator are discussed. Examples from reading research illustrate the influence of extraneous factors.

The reliable covariation between numerosity and spatial extent is considered as a strong constraint for inferring the successor principle in numerical cognition. We suggest that children can derive a general number concept from the (experientially) infinite succession of spatial positions during object manipulation.

This two-volume set provides a comprehensive overview of the multidisciplinary field of Embodied Cognition. With contributions from internationally acknowledged researchers from a variety of fields, Foundations of Embodied Cognition reveals how intelligent behaviour emerges from the interplay between brain, body and environment. Drawing on the most recent theoretical and empirical findings in embodied cognition, Volume 2 _Conceptual and Interactive Embodiment_ is divided into four distinct parts, bringing together a number of influential perspectives and new ideas. Part one introduces the field (...) of embodied language processing, before part two presents recent developments in our understanding of embodied conceptual understanding. The final two parts look at the applied nature of embodied cognition, exploring the embodied nature of social co-ordination as well as the emerging field of artificial embodiment. Building on the idea that knowledge acquisition, retention and retrieval are intimately interconnected with sensory and motor processes, _Foundations of Embodied Cognition_ is a landmark publication in the field. It will be of great interest to researchers and advanced students from across the cognitive sciences, including those specialising in psychology, neuroscience, intelligent systems and robotics, philosophy, linguistics and anthropology. (shrink)

A recent article in this Journal argued that insider trading is an unethical practice leading to an inefficiently functioning market. The debate on this topic has primarily pitted ethical defenses of prohibition against economic arguments extolling its allowance. In addition to being incomplete, this approach ignores other unwanted economic effects of prohibition itself and unethical implications of its existence. This article shows that Adam Smith's free market concept, when properly interpreted, provides all the incentive structure necessary for an efficient and (...) ethical marketplace even when insider trading is permitted. (shrink)