John Dewey and Ludwig Wittgenstein offer devastating critiques of the dominant model of human action that each inherited in their own time. Dewey, very early in his philosophical career, ostensibly put the stimulus–response mechanical understanding of action to rest with his “reflex-arc” concept article. Wittgenstein famously redescribed action as moves within language games that interconnect to constitute an interpretively open-ended form of life. In each case, these fundamental insights serve as heuristics, guiding our intellectual activity with regard to understanding our (...) practices, and as reminders in approaching problems. Several scholars have interpreted Dewey and Wittgenstein as allies in a grand project of... (shrink)

Overwhelming evidence points to the existence of separate sensory channels in the nervous system. The power of this type of parallel organization is that information is first processed in neurons specialized to code it most efficiently. However, sensory pathways are convergent and divergent at each level as well, as is necessary to interpret multimodal and conflicting information.

This paper argues that promises are proposals in joint practical deliberation, the activity of deciding together what to do. More precisely: to promise to ϕ is to propose (in a particular way) to decide together with your addressee(s) that you will ϕ. I defend this deliberative theory by showing that the activity of joint practical deliberation naturally gives rise to a speech act with exactly the same properties as promises. A certain kind of proposal to make a joint decision regarding (...) one's own actions turns out to have the very same normative effects, under the very same conditions, as a promise. I submit that this cannot be a coincidence: we should conclude that promises and the relevant kind of proposals in joint practical deliberation are one and the same. (shrink)

In this paper, we contend that the psychology of addiction is similar to the psychology of ordinary, non-addictive temptation in important respects, and explore the ways in which these parallels can illuminate both addiction and ordinary action. The incentive salience account of addiction proposed by Robinson and Berridge (1993; 2001; 2008) entails that addictive desires are not in their nature different from many of the desires had by non-addicts; what is different is rather the way that addictive desires are acquired, (...) which in turn affects their strength. We examine these “incentive salience” desires, both in addicts and non-addicts, contrasting them with more cognitive desires. On this account, the self-control challenge faced by addicted agents is not different in kind from that faced by non-addicted agents – though the two may, of course, differ greatly in degree of difficulty. We explore a general model of self-control for both the addict and the non-addict, stressing that self-control may be employed at three different stages, and examining the ways in which it might be strengthened. This helps elucidate a general model of intentional action. (shrink)

Recent work in moral philosophy has emphasized the foundational role played by interpersonal accountability in the analysis of moral concepts such as moral right and wrong, moral obligation and duty, blameworthiness, and moral responsibility (Darwall 2006; 2013a; 2013b). Extending this framework to the field of moral psychology, we hypothesize that our moral attitudes, emotions, and motives are also best understood as based in accountability. Drawing on a large body of empirical evidence, we argue that the implicit aim of the central (...) moral motives and emotions is to hold people - whether oneself or others - accountable for compliance with the demands of morality. Moral condemnation is based in a motive to get perpetrators to hold themselves accountable for their wrongdoing, not, as is commonly supposed, a mere retributive motive to make perpetrators suffer (�2). And moral conscience is based in a genuine motive to hold oneself accountable for behaving in accordance with moral demands, not, as is commonly supposed, a mere egoistic motive to appear moral to others (�3). The accountability-based theory of the moral motives and emotions we offer provides better explanations of the extant empirical data than any of the major alternative theories of moral motivation. Moreover, conceiving of moral psychology in this way gives us a new and illuminating perspective on what makes morality distinctive: its essential connection to our practice of holding one another accountable (�4). (shrink)

Frequency effects are pervasive in studies of language, with higher frequency words being recognized faster than lower frequency words. However, the exact nature of frequency effects has recently been questioned, with some studies finding that contextual information provides a better fit to lexical decision and naming data than word frequency ( Adelman et al., 2006 ). Recent work has cemented the importance of these results by demonstrating that a measure of the semantic diversity of the contexts that a word occurs (...) in provides a powerful measure to account for variability in word recognition latency ( Johns et al., 2012, 2015 ; Jones et al., 2012 ). The goal of the current study is to extend this measure to examine bilingualism and aging, where multiple theories use frequency of occurrence of linguistic constructs as central to accounting for empirical results ( Gollan et al., 2008 ; Ramscar et al., 2014 ). A lexical decision experiment was conducted with four groups of subjects: younger and older monolinguals and bilinguals. Consistent with past results, a semantic diversity variable accounted for the greatest amount of variance in the latency data. In addition, the pattern of fits of semantic diversity across multiple corpora suggests that bilinguals and older adults are more sensitive to semantic diversity information than younger monolinguals. (shrink)

In the context of transgender health, most people are not comfortable with allowing a twelve‐year‐old child with gender dysphoria to elect to undergo gender reassignment surgery. The likelihood is too high that the child would be unable to fully comprehend the scope of a decision that carries significant, permanent consequences, particularly because the decision to surgically change gender is based upon a conception of gender that can fluctuate during adolescent years. Conversely, however, most people would not contend that this fluidity (...) is reason to wholly deny certain medical care such as hormonal treatments to transgender youth, a demographic with extremely high rates of violent behavior, self‐harm, and suicide. This paper will explore ethical considerations to this emerging debate of what therapeutic options should be offered to transgender children and adolescents.Pediatric endocrinologists have been treating gender dysphoric adolescents with puberty‐suppressing drugs and, to a lesser extent, with cross‐sex hormone therapies for more than twenty years. Clinicians and thought leaders have mentioned ethical components of this emerging practice in the few cohort studies and clinical review articles about the subject. However, ethics have generally been a secondary consideration in the medical academic literature. In this paper, I will provide a brief overview of the practice, summarize the current research on hormone treatment for transgender minors, and provide an ethical analysis of the practice. (shrink)

Burt's argument relies on a motte-and-bailey fallacy. Burt aims to argue against the value of genetics for social science; instead she argues against certain interpretations of a specific kind of genetics tool, polygenic scores (PGSs). The limitations, previously identified by behavioural geneticists including ourselves, do not negate the value of PGSs, let alone genetics in general, for social science.

Political conspiracy theories—e.g., unsupported beliefs about the nefarious machinations of one’s cunning, powerful, and evil opponents—are adopted enthusiastically by a great many people of widely varying political orientations. In many cases, these theories posit that there exists a small group of individuals who have intentionally but secretly acted to cause economic problems, political strife, and even natural disasters. This group is often held to exist “in the shadows,” either because its membership is unknown, or because “the real nature” of its (...) members’ allegiances, motives, and methods has been concealed from the public at large. Paradigmatic examples of these political conspiracy theories include anti-Semitic beliefs of the sort associated with The Protocols of the Elder of Zion, the “Red Scare” of the 1950s, claims about the “New World Order,” and many others. -/- Why do these theories attract so many adherents? In this essay, I’ll attempt to spread some light on this issue by applying Kahneman and Tversky’s highly influential work on reasoning under uncertainty. I’ll proceed by first providing a brief introduction to Kahneman and Tversky’s work on reasoning under uncertainty, and the way in which this relates to standard economic and philosophic accounts of rational behavior, as well as philosophical ideas about the role of intuition. Next, I’ll move onto some specific interconnected aspects of this work that are relevant to understanding conspiracy theories, including errors involving probabilistic reasoning (“Prospect Theory”), those involving the inappropriate use of heuristics, and those related to the “framing” of certain outcomes as losses from a baseline. This essay will conclude by making two related points. First, some of the most important reasoning errors committed by adherents of conspiracy theories are errors that many of us regularly commit. Given that self-awareness of these errors provides only minimal protection from committing them, this suggests that many of use may be more vulnerable to conspiratorial reasoning than we may like to believe. Second, in the light of this danger, I will outline a few steps that might be taken to help inoculate ourselves against the appeal of these theories, and to help respond to the conspiratorial arguments of others. (shrink)

When in the sixth century Dionysius the Areopagite declared beauty to be a name for God, he gave birth to something that had long been gestating in the womb of philosophical and theological thought. In doing so, Dionysius makes one of his most pivotal contributions to Christian theological discourse. It is a contribution that is enthusiastically received by the schoolmen of the Middle Ages, and it comes to permeate the thought of scholasticism in a multitude of ways. But perhaps nowhere (...) is the Dionysian influence more pronounced than in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. This book examines both the historical development of beauty's appropriation as a name for God in Dionysius and Thomas, and the various contours of what it means. The argument that emerges from this study is that given the impact that the divine name theological tradition has within the development of Christian theological discourse, beauty as a divine name indicates the way in which beauty is most fundamentally conceived in the Christian theological tradition as a theological theme. As a phenomenon of inquiry, beauty proves itself to be enigmatic and elusive to even the sharpest intellects in the Greek philosophical tradition. When it is absorbed within the Christian theological synthesis, however, its enigmatic content proves to be a powerful resource for theological reasoning. (shrink)

Philosophy and Kafka is a collection of original essays interrogating the relationship of literature and philosophy. The essays either discuss specific philosophical commentaries on Kafka’s work, consider the possible relevance of certain philosophical outlooks for examining Kafka’s writings, or examine Kafka’s writings in terms of a specific philosophical theme, such as communication and subjectivity, language and meaning, knowledge and truth, the human/animal divide, justice, and freedom.

Evolutionary fitness threats and rewards are associated with subjectively unpleasant and pleasant sensations, respectively. Initially, these correlations appear explainable via adaptation by natural selection. But here I analyse the major metaphysical perspectives on consciousness – physicalism, dualism, and panpsychism – and conclude that none help to understand the adaptive-seeming correlations via adaptation. I also argue that a recently proposed explanation, the phenomenal powers view, has major problems that mean it cannot explain the adaptive-seeming correlations via adaptation either. So the mystery (...) – call it the evolutionary paradox of consciousness – remains. Some have used this mystery to argue for non-naturalistic (e.g. theistic) explanations. But I propose a naturalistic, non-adaptive explanation of the adaptive-seeming correlations: namely, ‘sensational associative learning’ during development. In this perspective, pairing of particular sensations with unconditioned stimuli – fitness rewards or threats – cause the sensations themselves to come to be interpreted as good or bad, respectively. Sensations, like colours, that are not reliably paired with either fitness rewards or threats remain largely unvalenced. Sensational associative learning also provides explanations for adaptive-seeming structural aspects of sensations, such as the observation that sounds of different pitch are experienced as ordinal in correspondence to their wavelengths while the same is not true of colours of different hue. The sensational associative learning perspective appears compatible with physicalism, panpsychism, and dualism (though not epiphenomenalism). (shrink)

According to current hierarchies of evidence for EBM, evidence of correlation is always more important than evidence of mechanisms when evaluating and establishing causal claims. We argue that evidence of mechanisms needs to be treated alongside evidence of correlation. This is for three reasons. First, correlation is always a fallible indicator of causation, subject in particular to the problem of confounding; evidence of mechanisms can in some cases be more important than evidence of correlation when assessing a causal claim. Second, (...) evidence of mechanisms is often required in order to obtain evidence of correlation. Third, evidence of mechanisms is often required in order to generalise and apply causal claims. While the EBM movement has been enormously successful in making explicit and critically examining one aspect of our evidential practice, i.e., evidence of correlation, we wish to extend this line of work to make explicit and critically examine a second aspect of our evidential practices: evidence of mechanisms. (shrink)

What accounts for the capacity of ordinary speakers to comprehend utterances of their language? The phenomenology of hearing speech in one’s own language makes it tempting to many epistemologists to look to perception for an answer to this question. That is, just as a visual experience as of a red square is often taken to give the perceiver immediate justification for believing that there is a red square in front of her, perhaps an auditory experience as of the speaker asserting (...) that p gives the competent hearer immediate justification for believing that the speaker has asserted that p. My aim here is to offer reasons for resisting this temptation. I argue that the perceptual model cannot adequately account for the hearer’s justification in many cases. The arguments here also allow us to draw certain further morals about the role of phenomenology in the epistemology of perception. (shrink)

Uttered language does not necessarily reflect the planned communications of schizophrenia patients, nor do their delusions necessarily reflect basic failures of inferential reasoning. The role of inhibitory failure in the production of speech and the role of primary experiences of discrepancy between intention and action, and between experience–based expectations and perceived realities account for many of the clinical phenomena that have led to the conclusion that these patients have a ‘thought’ disorder, or a ‘disturbed’ mind. The alternatives and the evidence (...) are summarized in this paper. (shrink)

Brendan Wilson leads the reader through Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, revealing a new clarity, singleness of purpose and contemporary relevance in this acknowledged masterpiece.

Investigations into the neurobiology of moral cognition are often done by examining clinical populations characterized by diminished moral emotions and a proclivity toward immoral behavior. Psychopathy is the most common disorder studied for this purpose. Although cocaine abuse is highly co-morbid with psychopathy and cocaine-dependent individuals exhibit many of the same abnormalities in socio-affective processing as psychopaths, this population has received relatively little attention in moral psychology. To address this issue, the authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to record (...) hemodynamic activity in 306 incarcerated male adults, stratified into regular cocaine users (n = 87) and a matched sample of non-cocaine users (n = 87), while viewing pictures that did or did not depict immoral actions and determining whether each depicted scenario occurred indoors or outdoors. Consistent with expectations, cocaine users showed abnormal neural activity in several frontostriatial regions during implicit moral picture processing compared to their non-cocaine using peers. This included reduced moral/non-moral picture discrimination in the vACC, vmPFC, lOFC, and left vSTR. Additionally, psychopathy was negatively correlated with activity in an overlapping region of the ACC and right lateralized vSTR. These results suggest that regular cocaine abuse may lead to affective deficits which can impact relatively high-level processes like moral cognition. Moreover, they add to a growing body of research suggesting an important role for the mesocorticolimbic dopamine pathway in socio-affective processing. (shrink)

The paper deals with the role of the concept of force in different classical mechanical and field theories, pointing out the existence in all cases of a Lorentz-type expression for force. In the case of the classical theory of the gravitational field we obtain the same Lorentz-type expression.

We review studies of an evolution operator ℒ for a discrete Langevin equation with a strongly hyperbolic classical dynamics and a Gaussian noise. The leading eigenvalue of ℒ yields a physically measurable property of the dynamical system, the escape rate from the repeller. The spectrum of the evolution operator ℒ in the weak noise limit can be computed in several ways. A method using a local matrix representation of the operator allows to push the corrections to the escape rate up (...) to order eight in the noise expansion parameter. These corrections then appear to form a divergent series. Actually, via a cumulant expansion, they relate to analogous divergent series for other quantities, the traces of the evolution operators ℒn. Using an integral representation of the evolution operator ℒ, we then investigate the high order corrections to the latter traces. Their asymptotic behavior is found to be controlled by sub-dominant saddle points previously neglected in the perturbative expansion, and to be ultimately described by a kind of trace formula. (shrink)

Several times, when faced with a difficult passage of scripture in Sermones ad populum, Augustine implores his audience, “knock and it shall be opened” (Matt. 7:7c; par. Luke 11:9c). Augustine uses this phrase to stress humility and the human need for God’s activity when interpreting scripture. Studying the archeological record of domestic architecture of locked doors in Roman North Africa elucidates Augustine’s message. Knowledge of the material culture shows that Augustine calls upon Christians to “knock” upon scripture as if it (...) were a door, locked and barred in such a way that it could only be opened from inside. Thus, a reader of scripture is like a petitioner calling from outside a locked door, needing God to open its meaning. Augustine’s use of “knocking” contrasts with the metaphor of “keys” to scripture, which was favored by Tyconius and other early Christian writers. In De doctrina Christiana, Augustine expresses concern that “keys” could lead a person into overconfidence, expecting to unlock obscure passages of the Bible by his or her own power. Augustine’s frequent use of Matt. 7:7c is a call for exegetes to approach scripture with humility. All members of the totus Christus, great and small, must humbly knock. The image of “knocking” provides a versatile theological message: human effort is important, but the meaning of the Bible is ultimately unlocked by God’s activity. (shrink)

In this thesis, I give a metascientific account of causality in medicine. I begin with two historical cases of causal discovery. These are the discovery of the causation of Burkitt’s lymphoma by the Epstein-Barr virus, and of the various viral causes suggested for cervical cancer. These historical cases then support a philosophical discussion of causality in medicine. This begins with an introduction to the Russo- Williamson thesis (RWT), and discussion of a range of counter-arguments against it. Despite these, I argue (...) that the RWT is historically workable, given a small number of modifications. I then expand Russo and Williamson’s account. I first develop their suggestion that causal relationships in medicine require some kind of evidence of mechanism. I begin with a number of accounts of mechanisms and produce a range of consensus features of them. I then develop this consensus position by reference to the two historical case studies with an eye to their operational competence. In particular, I suggest that it is mechanistic models and their representations which we are concerned with in medicine, rather than the mechanism as it exists in the world. -/- I then employ these mechanistic models to give an account of the sorts of evidence used in formulating and evaluating causal claims. Again, I use the two human viral oncogenesis cases to give this account. I characterise and distinguish evidence of mechanism from evidence of difference-making, and relate this to mechanistic models. I then suggest the relationship between types of evidence presents us with a means of tackling the reference-class problem. This sets the scene for the final chapter. Here, I suggest the manner in which these two different classes of evidence become integrated is also reflected in the way that developing research programmes change as their associated causal claims develop. (shrink)

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) makes use of explicit procedures for grading evidence for causal claims. Normally, these procedures categorise evidence of correlation produced by statistical trials as better evidence for a causal claim than evidence of mechanisms produced by other methods. We argue, in contrast, that evidence of mechanisms needs to be viewed as complementary to, rather than inferior to, evidence of correlation. In this paper we first set out the case for treating evidence of mechanisms alongside evidence of correlation in (...) explicit protocols for evaluating evidence. Next we provide case studies which exemplify the ways in which evidence of mechanisms complements evidence of correlation in practice. Finally, we put forward some general considerations as to how the two sorts of evidence can be more closely integrated by EBM. (shrink)

Daly, Brendan People place great value on the prayers of priests, and often ask priests to pray for them or family members. St Monica told her son St Augustine just before her death not to worry about burying her in Ostia, away from her native land. Then she said, 'Lay this body anywhere, and do not let the care of it be a trouble to you at all. Only this I ask: that you will remember me at the Lord's (...) altar, wherever you are'.1 She realised the value of the prayers of a priest. (shrink)

Daly, Brendan Pope Francis has emphasised the importance of priests and religious having a simple lifestyle since the beginning of his pontificate. Addressing seminarians and novices on 6 July 2013, Pope Francis said 'I think that cars are necessary because there is so much work to be done, and also in order to get about...but choose a more humble car! And if you like the beautiful one, only think of all the children who are dying of hunger.' The Pope (...) then quoted Saint Francis of Assisi who said 'Always proclaim the Gospel. And if necessary, with words'. Then Pope Francis asked 'What does this mean? Proclaiming the Gospel with an authentic life, with a consistent life. But in this world to which wealth does so much damage it is necessary that we priests, that we sisters, that all of us be consistent with our poverty!'. (shrink)

Daly, Brendan I am from Christchurch Diocese, a suffragan diocese of Wellington Archdiocese, a metropolitan see. During the past forty years, one diocesan bishop has resigned and was replaced by his coadjutor. This former coadjutor died soon afterwards. The next bishop resigned and was simultaneously replaced by the appointment of his auxiliary. The next two bishops died and created vacant sees. Usually there are significant time gaps between vacant sees, resulting in each vacancy being a new experience for the (...) key people involved. (shrink)

The literature on transnational civil society encompasses a number of conflicting views regarding civil society organizations’ (CSOs) behavior and impacts and the desirability of civil society involvement in international policymaking. This piece suggests that this lack of consensus arises from the diverse range of contexts in which CSOs operate and the wide variety of activities in which it engages. This article seeks to organize and analyze the disparate data on civil society by developing a context-based standard of democratic legitimacy for (...) CSOs. The article disaggregates democracy into input, throughput, and output components, and shows how CSOs must support or manifest different aspects of democracy in order to be democratically legitimate in a given context. Applying this standard to existing works, the article identifies several problems in current research, including a failure to recognize ways the democratic imperatives of transnational advocacy differ from national advocacy, and the potential for international civil society interventions to undermine local democratic processes. Keywords: transnational civil society; democracy; global governance; NGOs; international policymaking (Published: 1 September 2010) Citation: Ethics & Global Politics, Vol. 3, No. 3, 2010, pp. 217-238. DOI: 10.3402/egp.v3i3.4882. (shrink)

English mass noun phrases & count noun phrases differ only minimally grammatically. The basis for the difference is ascribed to a difference in the features +/-CT. These features serve the morphosyntactic function of determining the available options for the assigment of grammatical number, itself determined by the features +/-PL: +CT places no restriction on the available options, while -CT, in the unmarked case, restricts the available options to -PL. They also serve the semantic function of determining the sort of denotation (...) associated with demonstrative & quantified noun phrases. The feature -CT requires that the associated denotation be the set whose sole member is the greatest aggregate of which the noun phrase or noun is true; the feature +CT requires that the associated denotation be the set whose members are all & only those minimal aggregates of which the noun phrase or noun is true. At the same time, neither mass NPs nor count NPs that are arguments of a predicate have their predicate evaluated with respect to their denotations. Rather, the predicate is evaluated with respect to an aggregation, a set of aggregates constructed from the denotation of the noun phrase that is an argument of the predicate. 3 Tables, 4 Figures, 74 References. AA. (shrink)

In this vivid and incisive guide, philosophy comes to life. Using the central idea of causality as a guiding principle, Brendan Wilson shows how the history of philosophy becomes a very clear and natural sequence of events. The resulting perspective reveals the deep connections between the problems of science, mind and reality, freedom and responsibility, knowledge, language, truth and religion. Newcomers to philosophy will be able to engage with the great questions and ideas of the western tradition. The writing (...) is clear and jargon-free, while the 'short-chapter' format gives the reader time to pause and think at each step along the way. Style and layout put accessibility first and the many illustrations include explanatory diagrams and drawings as well as pictures of philosophers from Aristotle to Wittgenstein. Key Features Encourages critical and independent thinking Written in an engaging, non-technical style Makes clear sense of philosophy's rich and complex history Presents a distinctive argument Provides a wide range of case studies and examples from philosophy, science and law Text Features Chapter overviews Chapter sub-headings for ease of use Carefully-chosen quotations from philosophers ancient and modern End of chapter discussion points An open and attractive page layout Lavish and relevant illustrations, including photographs, diagrams, explanatory boxes and drawings. (shrink)

Pairs of sentences like the following pose a problem for ontology: (1) Jupiter has four moons. (2) The number of moons of Jupiter is four. (2) is intuitively a trivial paraphrase of (1). And yet while (1) seems ontologically innocent, (2) appears to imply the existence of numbers. Thomas Hofweber proposes that we can resolve the puzzle by recognizing that sentence (2) is syntactically derived from, and has the same meaning as, sentence (1). Despite appearances, the expressions ‘the number of (...) moons of Jupiter’ and ‘four’ do not function semantically as singular terms in (2). Hofweber’s primary evidence for this proposal concerns differences in the focus-related communicative functions of (1) and (2). In this paper I raise several serious problems for Hofweber’s proposal, and for his attempt to support it by appeal to focus-related phenomena. I conclude by offering independent evidence for an alternative, purely pragmatic resolution of the ontological puzzle. (shrink)

Category theory reveals commonalities between structures of all sorts. This book shows its potential in science, engineering, and beyond.

Predenville discusses the historical, artistic, and critical contexts in which painting has taken a realist turn. Color illustrations.

Very few writers have had such an impact on their culture as Alexander Solzhenitsyn on Soviet society in the ‘60s and ‘70s Recently published documents from the KGB archives show the problem he posed to the Soviet leadership—not because he was the only one to point out the massive falsehood and injustice of Soviet society but primarily due to the scathing power of his artistic diagnosis. Many of Solzhenitsyn’s writings in fictional, autobiographical, and publicistic genres can helpfully be understood in (...) terms of Plato’s struggle in the Athens of his day for a “remembering” or anamnesis of what it is to be a human being, a human society, and the cosmos as transparent for divinity. That struggle, even though Plato doesn’t use the word “amnesia”, was against the refusal to remember. The Austrian writer Heimito von Doderer called that refusal the Apperzeptionsverweigerung or refusal to perceive. Here we’ll explore Solzhenitsyn’s work in terms of his struggle to remember over against the ideological “refusal to perceive” in the three fundamental dimensions of personal, social and historical existence. Solzhenitsyn expands Mikhail Bakhtin’s understanding of “polyphonic” characterization as a key technique for articulating his diagnosis of Soviet totalitarianism. The discussion will instantiate what can be seen as his understanding of personal amnesia and anamnesis in Cancer Ward, his exploration of social amnesia and anamnesis in In the First Circle, and his treatment of historical amnesia and anamnesis in The Red Wheel and The Gulag Archipelago. (shrink)