Un fondement putatif dunon-cognitivisme à propos des valeurs, réside dans une conception qui voudrait que les descriptions du monde soient intelligibles sans se placer à un point de vue spécial, là où les assignations de valeur seraient par essence effectuées du sein d’une forme de vie affectivement et conativement informée (§ 1). J’émets plus que des réserves quant à l’idée qu’on puisse faire passer une suite d’applications d’un concept axiologique pour des cas de continuer de la même manière, sur un (...) mode qui soit cohérent avec ce genre de non-cognitivisme, en les expliquant comme une suite de réponses à des instances d’une espèce identifiable sur un mode non-axiologique (§ 2). L’examen par Wittgenstein de ce que c’est que suivre une règle sape l’un des motifs de supposer que l’application d’un concept axiologique ne saurait avoir d’autre cohérence qu’une cohérence de ce genre (§ 3). Je m’attache au lien que cela a avec un argument récurrent qui argue de ce que les jugements moraux sont des guides de l’action pour préconiser le non-cognitivisme (§ 4). Je conclus par la recommandation suivante : cette conception de la cohérence de la pensée axiologique ne saurait être aisément désavouée par les partisans du non cognitivisme (§ 5). (shrink)

Un fondement putatif dunon-cognitivisme à propos des valeurs, réside dans une conception qui voudrait que les descriptions du monde soient intelligibles sans se placer à un point de vue spécial, là où les assignations de valeur seraient par essence effectuées du sein d’une forme de vie affectivement et conativement informée (§ 1). J’émets plus que des réserves quant à l’idée qu’on puisse faire passer une suite d’applications d’un concept axiologique pour des cas de continuer de la même manière, sur un (...) mode qui soit cohérent avec ce genre de non-cognitivisme, en les expliquant comme une suite de réponses à des instances d’une espèce identifiable sur un mode non-axiologique (§ 2). L’examen par Wittgenstein de ce que c’est que suivre une règle sape l’un des motifs de supposer que l’application d’un concept axiologique ne saurait avoir d’autre cohérence qu’une cohérence de ce genre (§ 3). Je m’attache au lien que cela a avec un argument récurrent qui argue de ce que les jugements moraux sont des guides de l’action pour préconiser le non-cognitivisme (§ 4). Je conclus par la recommandation suivante : cette conception de la cohérence de la pensée axiologique ne saurait être aisément désavouée par les partisans du non cognitivisme (§ 5). (shrink)

"Publié en 1994, traduit chez Vrin en 2007, L'esprit et le monde de John McDowell n'a cessé de susciter des débats dans le monde philosophique anglo-saxon, sur l'esprit, la connaissance, le langage et la nature, contribuant à définir de nouvelles questions. Pour la première fois, cette oeuvre, qui emprunte aussi bien à Wittgenstein, Strawson et Davidson qu'à Kant et Hegel, et tente de dépasser l'opposition traditionnelle entre la philosophie dite "continentale" et la philosophie dite "analytique", fait l'objet d'une lecture (...) critique en France. Les contributions ici rassemblées, ainsi que les réponses de John McDowell, font suite à une "première vague" de commentaires critiques qui lui furent adressés et qui le conduisirent à s'expliquer sur ses thèses et à en modifier légèrement quelques-unes (comme la thèse du contenu conceptuel de la perception). On trouvera ici, dans les différentes contributions, un éclairage sur les raisons et les portées de cette critique, et, dans les réponses, des formulations pour la plupart tout à fait inédites de McDowell."--Page 4 de la couverture. (shrink)

Purpose. The research is devoted to the analysis of the urgent problem of the information society: the overload of a person with information and, as a result, the impossibility of adequate formation and development of the personality; as well as the problem of "digitization" of human existence and the formation of a new reality of dataism. Theoretical basis. A lot of modern scientific works are devoted to the analysis of the information society, its problems and features. The information society is (...) a logical continuation of the scientific and technological revolution, which led to the rapid growth of scientific knowledge and the technology development. In the 20th century, technologies have touched the sphere of knowledge and information, as a result of which the formation and development of the information society, or "knowledge society", takes place. Information becomes the main resource in it, and, one way or another, a person’s life is inextricably connected with the information space. With the information society formation, the problem of information search and processing becomes one of the most urgent. It turns out that despite the abundance and availability of information, it is very difficult to determine its relevance. A lot of effort is spent on developing information retrieval algorithms. Another problem is related to the person’s inability to process large amounts of data. This situation begins to influence not only the education process and professional activity, but also the formation of a person’s personality. A person is "lost" in the information space and gradually loses his/her "I". Algorithms for data analysis come to the rescue, but gradually, instead of giving a person material for thought, they begin to make decisions on their own, and therefore, live life instead of a person. With the advent of Big Data processing algorithms, a new ideological paradigm appears – dataism, which predicts the merger of a person with the general data flow. Originality. The authors make assumptions that the dataistic future is "natural". A lot of works, including in the framework of philosophy, are focused on the problem of "dissolving" a person in the information space and finding ways to overcome it. But, in our opinion, this process is a completely logical continuation of human evolution. Conclusions. Existence of a person as a data flow is not a problem and a threat, but a new dimension of his/her being, and, therefore, requires a careful study and formulation of the main principles of this form of existence. (shrink)

The classical argument for the existence of other minds begins by ascribing states of consciousness to oneself, and argues to the existence of other conscious beings on the basis of an analogy in bodily constitution and behavior. P. F. Strawson attacks the foundation of this argument. “One can ascribe states of consciousness to oneself only if one can ascribe them to others. One can ascribe them to others only if one can identify other subjects of experience.” My thesis is that (...) this objection depends on running together the two distinct necessary conditions for ascribing states of consciousness. There is the conceptual condition (a general concept of consciousness); and there is the referential condition (the capacity to identify suitable subjects).A version of the argument from analogy is also developed which does not presuppose an original consciousness that my experiences are mine. The general concept of experience is by itself enough for the original specification of all experiences associated with body M, because other experiences which also conform to the concept are not introduced until the argument from analogy is complete. (shrink)

The classical argument for the existence of other minds begins by ascribing states of consciousness to oneself, and argues to the existence of other conscious beings on the basis of an analogy in bodily constitution and behavior. P. F. Strawson attacks the foundation of this argument. “One can ascribe states of consciousness to oneself only if one can ascribe them to others. One can ascribe them to others only if one can identify other subjects of experience.” My thesis is that (...) this objection depends on running together the two distinct necessary conditions for ascribing states of consciousness. There is the conceptual condition (a general concept of consciousness); and there is the referential condition (the capacity to identify suitable subjects).A version of the argument from analogy is also developed which does not presuppose an original consciousness that my experiences are mine. The general concept of experience is by itself enough for the original specification of all experiences associated with body M, because other experiences which also conform to the concept are not introduced until the argument from analogy is complete. (shrink)

Les remarques qui vont suivre n?ont pas pour objectif de dire positive­ment ce qu? est l?intentionnalité, et nous voudrions seulement, de façon plus modeste, contribuer à l?examen d?un des problèmes fondamentaux que sou­lève cette notion, en posant la question de savoir ce que l?intentionnalité doit être pour que nous puissions en parler, c?est-à-dire pour qu?un discours descriptif puisse se donner une prise sur elle. Cette question, nous l?emprun­tons de façon un peu détournée à un livre récent de John McDowell, (...) Having the world in view , dans le contexte duquel il nous faut d?abord essayer de la resituer. Dans le dernier texte de cet ouvrage 1 , McDowell commente la lecture que Wilfrid Sellars avait proposée de la Critique de la raison pure , et il revient significativement à cette occasion sur les reproches que lui-même avait adressés à Kant quelques années plus tôt, dans Mind and World . McDowell en vient alors à opposer, sur un modèle qui rappelle très fortement la distinction classique entre oratio recta et oratio obliqua , notre façon habi­tuelle de parler du monde d?un côté, et, de l?autre, une façon proprement philosophique (que McDowell nomme également « transcendantale ») de faire usage du discours pour analyser ce rapport au monde qui se noue dans notre pratique ordinaire du langage. Lorsque nous affirmons quelque chose du monde, que nous discutons de tel ou tel sujet, que nous nous. (shrink)

Little is known about the consequences of moral distress. The purpose of this study was to identify clinical situations that caused nurses to experience moral distress, to understand the consequences of those situations, and to determine whether nurses would change their practice based on their experiences. The investigation used a descriptive approach. Open-ended surveys were distributed to a convenience sample of 204 critical care nurses employed at a university medical center. The analysis of participants’ responses used an inductive approach and (...) a thematic analysis. Each line of the data was reviewed and coded, and the codes were collapsed into themes. Methodological rigor was established. Forty-nine nurses responded to the survey. The majority of nurses had experienced moral distress, and the majority of situations that caused nurses to experience moral distress were related to end of life. The nurses described negative consequences for themselves, patients, and families. (shrink)

Many analogies exist between the process of evolution by natural selection and of learning by reinforcement and punishment. A full extension of the evolutionary analogy to learning to include analogues of the fitness, genotype, development, environmental influences, and phenotype concepts makes possible a single theory of the learning process able to encompass all of the elementary procedures known to yield learning.

David Blank presents a new translation into clear modern English of a key treatise by one of the greatest of ancient philosophers, together with the first ever commentary on this work. Sextus Empiricus' Against the Grammarians is a polemical attack on ancient Greek ideas about grammar, and provides one of the best examples of sustained Sceptical reasoning.

The history of the National Health Service research ethics system in the UK and some of the key drivers for its change into the present system are described. It is suggested that the key drivers were the unnecessary delay of research, the complexity of the array of processes and contradictions between research ethics committee (REC) decisions. It is then argued that the primary drivers for this change are and will be replicated by the systems of research ethics review being put (...) in place at UK universities in response to the Economic and Social Research Council research ethics framework. It is argued that this is particularly problematic for multi-centre review and for researchers who switch institutions. Finally, some potential solutions to this problem and their feasibility are discussed. (shrink)

Two of the most well-known belief contraction operators are partial meet contractions (PMCs) and kernel contractions (KCs). In this paper we propose two new classes of contraction operators, namely the class of generalized partial meet contractions (GPMC) and the class of generalized kernel contractions (GKC), which strictly contain the classes of PMCs and of KCs, respectively. We identify some extra conditions that can be added to the definitions of GPMCs and of GKCs, which give rise to some interesting subclasses of (...) those classes of functions, namely the classes of extensional and of uniform GPMCs/GKCs. In the context of contractions on belief sets the classes of partial meet contractions, uniform GPMCs and extensional GPMCs are all identical. Nevertheless, when considered as operations on belief bases, the class of uniform GPMCs coincides with the class of partial meet contractions, but the extensional GPMCs constitute a new kind of belief base contraction functions whose characterizing postulate of irrelevance of syntax is extensionality—the same postulate of irrelevance of syntax which occurs in the classical axiomatic characterization of partial meet contractions for belief sets—rather than the postulate of uniformity—which is the irrelevance of syntax postulate used in the axiomatic characterization for partial meet contractions on belief bases. Analogous results are obtained regarding the classes of extensional and of uniform GKCs. We present the interrelations in the sense of inclusion among all the new classes of operators presented in this paper and several well known classes of PMCs and of KCs. (shrink)

The interaction of the organism with the environment requires not only reactive, but also active behavior which helps subject to meet the challenge of the uncertainty of the environment. A positive feedback between active behavior and immune system makes the selection process effective.

Hull et al.'s analysis of operant behavior in terms of interaction and replication does not seem consistent with a genuine selection model. The putative replicators do not replicate, and the overall process is more reminiscent of directed mutation than of natural selection. General analogies between natural selection and operant reinforcement are too superficial to be of much scientific use.

In their account of learning and behavior, the authors define an interactor as emitted behavior that operates on the environment, which excludes Pavlovian learning. A unified neural-network account of the operant-Pavlovian dichotomy favors interpreting neurons as interactors and synaptic efficacies as replicators. The latter interpretation implies that single-synapse change is inherently Lamarckian.

Activity anorexia illustrates selection of behavior at the biological, behavioral, and neural levels. Based on evolutionary history, food depletion increases the reinforcement value of physical activity that, in turn, decreases the reinforcement effectiveness of eating – resulting in activity anorexia. Neural opiates participate in the selection of physical activity during periods of food depletion.

Seeking parallels among disciplines can have both risks and benefits. Finding parallels may be a vacuous exercise in categorization, generating no new insights. And pointing to analogous functions may cause us to treat them as homologous. Hull et al. have provided a basis for the generation of insights in different selectionist areas, without confusing analogy with homology.

Sustained attention, a key cognitive skill that improves during childhood and adolescence, tends to be worse in some emotional and behavioural disorders. Sustained attention is typically studied in non-affective task contexts; here, we used a novel task to index performance in affective versus neutral contexts across adolescence (N = 465; ages 11–18). We asked whether: (i) performance would be worse in negative versus neutral task contexts; (ii) performance would improve with age; (iii) affective interference would be greater in younger adolescents; (...) (iv) adolescents at risk for depression and higher in anxiety would show overall worse performance; and (v) would show differential performance in negative contexts. Results indicated that participants performed more poorly in negative contexts and showed age-related performance improvements. Those at risk of depression performed more poorly than those at lower risk. However, there was no difference between groups as a result of affective context. For anxiety there was no difference in performance as a function of severity. However, those with higher anxiety showed less variance in their reaction times to negative stimuli than those with lower anxiety. One interpretation is that moderate levels of emotional arousal associated with anxiety make individuals less susceptible to the distracting effects of negative stimuli. (shrink)

Traditional theists are, with few exceptions, global semantic realists about the interpretation of external world statement. Realism of this kind is treated by many as a shibboleth of traditional Christianity, a sine qua non of theological orthodoxy. Yet, this love affair between theists and semantic realism is a poor match. I suggest that everyone (theist or no) has compelling evidence drawn from everyday linguistic practice to reject a realist interpretation of most external world statements. But theists have further reason to (...) forswear this view, because those who insist on global semantic realism open themselves to the charge of hubris of a theologically inappropriate kind. If the arguments in this paper are sound, then neither God nor any of us have reason to apply a realist interpretation to all or even most statements about the external world. (shrink)

Objectives—To assess whether UK and US health care professionals share the views of medical ethicists about medical futility, withdrawing/withholding treatment, ordinary/extraordinary interventions, and the doctrine of double effectDesign, subjects and setting–A 138-item attitudinal questionnaire completed by 469 UK nurses studying the Open University course on “Death and Dying” was compared with a similar questionnaire administered to 759 US nurses and 687 US doctors taking the Hastings Center course on “Decisions near the End of Life”.Results–Practitioners accept the relevance of concepts widely (...) disparaged by bioethicists: double effect, medical futility, and the distinctions between heroic/ordinary interventions and withholding/ withdrawing treatment. Within the UK nurses' group a “rationalist” axis of respondents who describe themselves as having “no religion” are closer to the bioethics consensus on withholding and withdrawing treatment.Conclusions—Professionals' beliefs differ substantially from the recommendations of their professional bodies and from majority opinion in bioethics. Bioethicists should be cautious about assuming that their opinions will be readily accepted by practitioners. (shrink)