Intentionalism about demonstratives is the view that the referent of a demonstrative is determined solely by the speaker's intentions. Intentionalists can disagree about the nature of these intentions, but are united in rejecting the relevance of other factors, such as the speaker's gestures, her gaze, and any facts about the addressee or the audience. In this paper, I formulate a particular version of this view, and I defend it against six objections, old and new.

How do cognition and affect interact to produce action? Research in intergroup psychology illuminates this question by investigating the relationship between stereotypes and prejudices about social groups. Yet it is now clear that many social attitudes are implicit. This raises the question: how does the distinction between cognition and affect apply to implicit mental states? An influential view—roughly analogous to a Humean theory of action—is that “implicit stereotypes” and “implicit prejudices” constitute two separate constructs, reflecting different mental processes and neural (...) systems. On this basis, some have also argued that interventions to reduce discrimination should combat implicit stereotypes and prejudices separately. We propose an alternative framework. We argue that all putative implicit stereotypes are affect-laden and all putative implicit prejudices are “semantic,” that is, they stand in co-activating associations with concepts and beliefs. Implicit biases, therefore, consist in “clusters” of semantic-affective associations, which differ in degree, rather than kind. This framework captures the psychological structure of implicit bias, promises to improve the power of indirect measures to predict behavior, and points toward the design of more effective interventions to combat discrimination. (shrink)

This chapter is centered around an apparent tension that research on implicit bias raises between virtue and social knowledge. Research suggests that simply knowing what the prevalent stereotypes are leads individuals to act in prejudiced ways—biasing decisions about whom to trust and whom to ignore, whom to promote and whom to imprison—even if they reflectively reject those stereotypes. Because efforts to combat discrimination obviously depend on knowledge of stereotypes, a question arises about what to do next. This chapter argues that (...) the obstacle to virtue is not knowledge of stereotypes as such, but the “accessibility” of such knowledge to the agent who has it. “Accessibility” refers to how easily knowledge comes to mind. Social agents can acquire the requisite knowledge of stereotypes while resisting their pernicious influence, so long as that knowledge remains, in relevant contexts, relatively inaccessible. (shrink)

What can we do—and what should we do—to fight against bias? This final chapter introduces empirically-tested interventions for combating implicit (and explicit) bias and promoting a fairer world, from small daily-life debiasing tricks to larger structural interventions. Along the way, this chapter raises a range of moral, political, and strategic questions about these interventions. This chapter further stresses the importance of admitting that we don’t have all the answers. We should be humble about how much we still don’t know and (...) dedicate efforts to gathering as much knowledge as possible. Even so, we know enough now to start making a difference, and this chapter ultimately aims to chip away at the gap between our abstract commitments to treat people fairly and our lived habits and experiences, which continue to be shaped by implicit and explicit prejudices and stereotypes about race, gender, and other social categories. (shrink)

Social psychologists often describe “implicit” racial biases as entirely unconscious, and as mere associations between groups and traits, which lack intentional content, e.g., we associate “black” and “athletic” in much the same way we associate “salt” and “pepper.” However, recent empirical evidence consistently suggests that individuals are aware of their implicit biases, albeit in partial, inarticulate, or even distorted ways. Moreover, evidence suggests that implicit biases are not “dumb” semantic associations, but instead reflect our skillful, norm-sensitive, and embodied engagement with (...) social reality. This essay draws on phenomenological and hermeneutic methods and concepts to better understand what social-psychological research has begun to reveal about the conscious access individuals have to their own racial attitudes, as well as the intentional contents of the attitudes themselves. -/- First, I argue that implicit racial biases form part of the “background” of social experience. That is, while they exert a pervasive influence on our perceptions, judgments, and actions, they are frequently felt but not noticed, or noticed but misinterpreted. Second, I argue that our unreflective racial attitudes are neither mere associations nor fully articulated, propositionally structured beliefs or emotions. Their intentional contents are fundamentally indeterminate. For example, when a white person experiences a “gut feeling” of discomfort during an interaction with a black person, there is a question about the meaning or nature of that discomfort. Is it a fear of black people? Is it anxiety about appearing racist? There is, I argue, no general, determinate answer to such questions. The contents of our unreflective racial attitudes are fundamentally vague and open-ended, although I explain how they nevertheless take on particular shapes and implications—that is, their content can become determinate—depending on context, social meaning, and structural power relations. (If, for example, a perceived authority figure, such as a politician, parent, or scientist, encourages you to believe that your uncomfortable gut feeling is a justified fear of other social groups, then that is what your gut feeling is likely to become.). (shrink)

Este trabalho trata do conceito Exu Diaspórico, o qual foi forjado para lidar com as pesquisas empíricas situadas dentro do quadro teórico da vaga decolonial. Sua concepção está ligada às tradições iorubanas diaspóricas nessa parte do Atlântico Sul onde emergiram outros sistemas resultantes, quer seja de fragmentos e vestígios de narrativas em gestos de memória e resistência, quer seja da tradução realizada pelo outro, muitas vezes, por meio de um processo de carnavalização cultural, que, por sua vez, se deu pela (...) convivência com os bantu, com os povos autóctones e com o colonizador europeu. Este conceito se articula com o conceito de língua-linguagem como encruzilhada apresentado por Araújo (2021a), mas pode ser tomado, ainda, de forma independente. Portanto, trata-se de uma discussão conceitual que visa contribuir com as reflexões e pesquisas decoloniais. O conceito também está a cargo de noções como negritude e Baianidade. Contudo, ele aparece para reunir todas as representações de Exu que resultaram da diáspora negra em meio a um processo de carnavalização das tradições iorubanas em contato com outras culturas e cosmologias. (shrink)

The thin red line ( TRL ) is a theory about the semantics of future-contingents. The central idea is that there is such a thing as the ‘actual future’, even in the presence of indeterminism. It is inspired by a famous solution to the problem of divine foreknowledge associated with William of Ockham, in which the freedom of agents is argued to be compatible with God’s omniscience. In the modern branching time setting, the theory of the TRL is widely regarded (...) to suffer from several fundamental problems. In this paper we propose several new TRL semantics, each with differing degrees of success. This leads up to our final semantics, which is a cross between the TRL and supervaluationism. We discuss the notions of truth, validity and semantic consequence which result from our final semantics, and demonstrate some of its pleasing results. This account, we believe, answers the main objection in the literature, and thus places the TRL on the same level as any other competing semantics for future contingents. (shrink)

The summer of 2020 witnessed perhaps the largest protests in American history in response to police and vigilante brutality against the black community. New protests are still erupting every time another suppressed video, such as of Daniel Prude, surfaces, or another killing, such as Breonna Taylor’s, goes unpunished. As communities demand meaningful reform, the point – or pointlessness – of “implicit bias training” takes on renewed urgency. Implicit bias trainings aim to raise awareness about the unwitting or unwilling prejudices and (...) stereotypes that shape our habits of thinking, feeling, and navigating through the social world. These trainings have been widely adopted by businesses, schools, and law enforcement agencies. Do they make any difference? -/- Although I conduct implicit bias trainings myself (including for courts, judges, police, and attorneys), I share many critics’ concerns. Many trainings are too brief and oversimple, and too often their real function is to permit organisations to “check a box” to protect against litigation, rather than to spark real change. But “implicit bias training” is just another way of saying “education about implicit bias,” and, like all kinds of education, it can be done well or poorly. If implicit bias is one important piece of a large and complex puzzle, then education about it – when done right – should have a meaningful role to play in helping us understand ongoing inequities and enact reforms. (shrink)

Este trabalho trata do conceito Exu Diaspórico, o qual foi forjado para lidar com as pesquisas empíricas situadas dentro do quadro teórico da vaga decolonial. Sua concepção está ligada às tradições iorubanas diaspóricas nessa parte do Atlântico Sul onde emergiram outros sistemas resultantes, quer seja de fragmentos e vestígios de narrativas em gestos de memória e resistência, quer seja da tradução realizada pelo outro, muitas vezes, por meio de um processo de carnavalização cultural, que, por sua vez, se deu pela (...) convivência com os bantu, com os povos autóctones e com o colonizador europeu. Este conceito se articula com o conceito de língua-linguagem como encruzilhada apresentado por Araújo (2021a), mas pode ser tomado, ainda, de forma independente. Portanto, trata-se de uma discussão conceitual que visa contribuir com as reflexões e pesquisas decoloniais. O conceito também está a cargo de noções como negritude e Baianidade. Contudo, ele aparece para reunir todas as representações de Exu que resultaram da diáspora negra em meio a um processo de carnavalização das tradições iorubanas em contato com outras culturas e cosmologias. (shrink)

I defend Fricker’s virtue-theoretic proposals for grappling with epistemic injustice, arguing that her account is both empirically oriented and plausible. I agree with Fricker that an integral component of what we ought to do in the face of pervasive epistemic injustice is working to cultivate epistemic habits that aim to consistently neutralize the effects of such prejudices on their credibility estimates. But Fricker does not claim that her specific proposals constitute the only means through which individuals and institutions should combat (...) epistemic injustice. I therefore build on Fricker’s account by beginning to sketch a fuller picture of the structure of cultivating epistemic virtue. Virtue cultivation must, I argue, occur on two broad but interrelated fronts: first, the direct retraining of more automatic and unreflective patterns of thinking, feeling, and reacting to epistemic social reality, and second, the cultivation of more reflective, metacognitive virtues, such as the ability to swiftly identify contexts in which our first-order epistemic intuitions are likely astray. Although I articulate a range of individual-level obligations, my account is not individualistic. With Fricker, I argue that individual self-transformation is a necessary but not sufficient component of the struggle for epistemic justice. Accordingly, I sketch several ways in which individual virtue cultivation must be a socially and institutionally embedded process. Moreover, I argue that this process is ongoing. While most individuals cannot actually achieve such moral-epistemic ideals, many can (and therefore should try to) get much closer than they already are. (shrink)

We suggest that human culture exhibits key Darwinian evolutionary properties, and argue that the structure of a science of cultural evolution should share fundamental features with the structure of the science of biological evolution. This latter claim is tested by outlining the methods and approaches employed by the principal subdisciplines of evolutionary biology and assessing whether there is an existing or potential corresponding approach to the study of cultural evolution. Existing approaches within anthropology and archaeology demonstrate a good match with (...) the macroevolutionary methods of systematics, paleobiology, and biogeography, whereas mathematical models derived from population genetics have been successfully developed to study cultural microevolution. Much potential exists for experimental simulations and field studies of cultural microevolution, where there are opportunities to borrow further methods and hypotheses from biology. Potential also exists for the cultural equivalent of molecular genetics in “social cognitive neuroscience,” although many fundamental issues have yet to be resolved. It is argued that studying culture within a unifying evolutionary framework has the potential to integrate a number of separate disciplines within the social sciences. (shrink)

Amartya Sen argues that sectarian discord and violence are fueled by confusion about the nature of identity, including the pervasive tendency to see ourselves as members of singular social groups standing in opposition to other groups (e.g. Democrat vs. Republican, Muslim vs. Christian, etc.). Sen defends an alternative model of identity, according to which we all inevitably belong to a plurality of discrete identity groups (including ethnicities, classes, genders, races, religions, careers, hobbies, etc.) and are obligated to choose, in any (...) given context, which among our multiple affiliations to prioritize. While Sen’s model of discrete identity prioritization is a clear advance over single-factor accounts, it overlooks significant lessons about identity from over 150 years of scholarship by feminists of color. In ignoring the experiences of women of color, Sen’s model falsely assumes that identities are in-principle separable for the purposes of practical deliberation; and, in obligating individuals to make such identity-based “reasoned choices,” Sen’s model forces those with multiply marginalized identities to choose from a set of externally defined identity options, none of which sufficiently captures their experiences. (shrink)

This piece is a comment on Quilty-Dunn, Jake, Nicolas Porot, and Eric Mandelbaum. 2023. “The Best Game in Town: The Reemergence of the Language-of-Thought Hypothesis across the Cognitive Sciences.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 46: e261. -/- The target article signal boosts important ongoing work across the cognitive sciences. However, its theoretical claims, generative value, and purported contributions are – where not simply restatements of arguments extensively explored elsewhere – imprecise, noncommittal, and underdeveloped to a degree that makes them difficult to (...) evaluate. The article's apparent force results from engaging with straw rather than steel opponents. (shrink)

James Anderson and Greg Welty have resurrected an argument for God’s existence, which we will call the argument from logic. We present three lines of response against the argument, involving the notion of necessity involved, the notion of intentionality involved, and then we pose a dilemma for divine conceptualism. We conclude that the argument faces substantial problems.

The history of the idea of predicate is the history of its emancipation. The lesson of this paper is that there are two more steps to take. The first is to recognize that predicates need not have a fixed degree, the second that they can combine with plural terms. We begin by articulating the notion of a multigrade predicate: one that takes variably many arguments. We counter objections to the very idea posed by Peirce, Dummett's Frege, and Strawson. We show (...) that the arguments of a multigrade predicate must be grouped into places, with perhaps several arguments occupying positions at a place. Variability may relate to places or positions. Russell's multiple judgement predicate turns out to be just one example of a family-'is necessarily true of', 'is said of', 'is instantiated by' and so on-of predicates with variably many places. Our main concern, however, is lists. Any adequate account of lists must include plural as well as singular terms. On one account, lists are mere strings of separate arguments, which occupy variably many positions within a place of a multigrade predicate. A quite different account takes the list itself to be a compound plural term. We compare these rival conceptions, and reach some surprising conclusions. As a coda, we deploy the conceptual apparatus developed in the paper to assess Morton's pioneer system of multigrade logic. (shrink)

What role does non-genetic inheritance play in evolution? In recent work we have independently and collectively argued that the existence and scope of non-genetic inheritance systems, including epigenetic inheritance, niche construction/ecological inheritance, and cultural inheritance—alongside certain other theory revisions—necessitates an extension to the neo-Darwinian Modern Synthesis (MS) in the form of an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES). However, this argument has been challenged on the grounds that non-genetic inheritance systems are exclusively proximate mechanisms that serve the ultimate function of calibrating organisms (...) to stochastic environments. In this paper we defend our claims, pointing out that critics of the EES (1) conflate non-genetic inheritance with early 20th-century notions of soft inheritance; (2) misunderstand the nature of the EES in relation to the MS; (3) confuse individual phenotypic plasticity with trans-generational non-genetic inheritance; (4) fail to address the extensive theoretical and empirical literature which shows that non-genetic inheritance can generate novel targets for selection, create new genetic equilibria that would not exist in the absence of non-genetic inheritance, and generate phenotypic variation that is independent of genetic variation; (5) artificially limit ultimate explanations for traits to gene-based selection, which is unsatisfactory for phenotypic traits that originate and spread via non-genetic inheritance systems; and (6) fail to provide an explanation for biological organization. We conclude by noting ways in which we feel that an overly gene-centric theory of evolution is hindering progress in biology and other sciences. (shrink)

A pragmatic approach to business ethics is argued for in this volume, which demonstrates the usefulness of the approach by applying it to a variety of issues. These issues are broad and far-reaching and include the relations between rational and moral//ethical decision-making, the limits of loyalty to employers, the impact of trust on business and the role of commercial public opinion polling during elections. The author also covers advertising, tobacco promotion, manufacture and marketing of armaments, concentration and taxation of wealth, (...) and the North American Free Trade Agreement. (shrink)

This paper explores an empirical puzzle, namely, how inter-organizational relationships can be sustained between organizations that draw upon distinctive—and potentially conflicting—institutional logics under conditions of power asymmetry. This research analyses cases of these relationships and suggests some key conditions underlying them. Examining relationships between ‘Fair Trade’ organizations and corporate retailers, a series of contingent factors behind the dynamic persistence of such relationships are proposed, namely: the presence of pre-existing ‘hybrid logics’; the use of boundary-spanning discourses; joint tolerance of conflict; and (...) co-creation of common rules. These four elements are supported by a fifth mediating factor, i.e. the presence and use of a Fair Trade certification system in the collaboration. The latter appears as a central vehicle facilitating cross-logic relationships—it can be seen as a ‘boundary object’ embodying a series of narratives and discourses that are open to multiple interpretations corresponding to the dominant institutional logics of each partner organization. (shrink)

We explicate representational content by addressing how representations that ex- plain intelligent behavior might be acquired through processes of Darwinian evo- lution. We present the results of computer simulations of evolved neural network controllers and discuss the similarity of the simulations to real-world examples of neural network control of animal behavior. We argue that focusing on the simplest cases of evolved intelligent behavior, in both simulated and real organisms, reveals that evolved representations must carry information about the creature’s environ- ments (...) and further can do so only if their neural states are appropriately isomor- phic to environmental states. Further, these informational and isomorphism rela- tions are what are tracked by content attributions in folk-psychological and cognitive scientific explanations of these intelligent behaviors. (shrink)

Russell had two theories of definite descriptions: one for singular descriptions, another for plural descriptions. We chart its development, in which ‘On Denoting’ plays a part but not the part one might expect, before explaining why it eventually fails. We go on to consider many-valued functions, since they too bring in plural terms—terms such as ‘4’ or the descriptive ‘the inhabitants of London’ which, like plain plural descriptions, stand for more than one thing. Logicians need to take plural reference seriously (...) if only because mathematicians take many-valued functions seriously. We assess the objection (by Russell, Frege and others) that many-valued functions are illegitimate because the corresponding terms are ambiguous. We also assess the various methods proposed for getting rid of them. Finding the objection ill-founded and the methods ineffective, we introduce a logical framework that admits plural reference, and use it to answer some earlier questions and to raise some more. (shrink)

Circumcision is often claimed to be simpler, safer and more cost-effective when performed in the neonatal period as opposed to later in life, with a greater benefit-to-risk ratio. In the first part of this paper, we critically examine the evidence base for these claims, and find that it is not as robust as is commonly assumed. In the second part, we demonstrate that, even if one simply grants these claims for the sake of argument, it still does not follow that (...) neonatal circumcision is ethically permissible absent urgent medical necessity. Based on a careful consideration of the relevant evidence, arguments and counterarguments, we conclude that medically unnecessary penile circumcision—like other medically unnecessary genital procedures, such as ‘cosmetic’ labiaplasty—should not be performed on individuals who are too young (or otherwise unable) to provide meaningful consent to the procedure. (shrink)

Intuitively, moral responsibility requires conscious awareness of what one is doing, and why one is doing it, but what kind of awareness is at issue? Neil Levy argues that phenomenal consciousness—the qualitative feel of conscious sensations—is entirely unnecessary for moral responsibility. He claims that only access consciousness—the state in which information (e.g., from perception or memory) is available to an array of mental systems (e.g., such that an agent can deliberate and act upon that information)—is relevant to moral responsibility. I (...) argue that numerous ethical, epistemic, and neuroscientific considerations entail that the capacity for phenomenal consciousness is necessary for moral responsibility. I focus in particular on considerations inspired by P. F. Strawson, who puts a range of qualitative moral emotions—the reactive attitudes—front and center in the analysis of moral responsibility. (shrink)

We present a plural logic that is as expressively strong as it can be without sacrificing axiomatisability, axiomatise it, and use it to chart the expressive limits set by axiomatisability. To the standard apparatus of quantification using singular variables our object-language adds plural variables, a predicate expressing inclusion (is/are/is one of/are among), and a plural definite description operator. Axiomatisability demands that plural variables only occur free, but they have a surprisingly important role. Plural description is not eliminable in favour of (...) quantification; on the contrary, quantification is definable in terms of it. Predicates and functors (function signs) can take plural as well as singular terms as arguments, and both many-valued and single-valued functions are expressible. The system accommodates collective as well as distributive predicates, and the condition for a predicate to be distributive is definable within it; similarly for functors. An essential part of the project is to demonstrate the soundness and completeness of the calculus with respect to a semantics that does without set-theoretic domains and in which the use of settheoretic extensions of predicates and functors is replaced by the sui generis relations and functions for which the extensions were at best artificial surrogates. Our metalanguage is designed to solve the difficulties involved in talking plurally about individuals and about the semantic values of plural items. (shrink)

We all learn about the mistake of treating ‘nothing’ as if it were a term standing for something; but is it a mistake to treat it as an empty term, denoting nothing? We argue not, and we introduce ‘zilch’, defined as ‘the non-self-identical thing’, as a term which is empty as a matter of logical necessity. We contrast its behaviour with that of the quantifier ‘nothing’, and illustrate its uses. We use the same idea to vindicate Locke’s, Descartes’ and Hume’s (...) handling of ‘nothing’, and we show how Heidegger’s ‘das Nichts nichtet’ comes out as logically true. (shrink)

Entendendo a identidade como construção ideológica, esta pesquisa busca refletir sobre a identidade dos professores de língua portuguesa construída nos Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais e nas Orientações Curriculares Nacionais para o ensino de língua portuguesa, os quais impõem uma nova postura teórica e prática a estes profissionais. Dito de outra forma, pretende-se apresentar e discutir os resultados de uma análise discursiva das representações da (s) identidade (s) e competências atribuídas aos professores, enfatizando as representações sociais da profissão do professor na sociedade (...) contemporânea brasileira, abrindo a possibilidade para questionarmos a identidade unificada e transparente que os documentos oficiais desenham para os professores. (shrink)

Standard economic models predict large economic gains from liberalized immigration. However, those models assume that immigrants would have no effect on the causes of economic prosperity in destination countries. Immigrants could reduce the quality of economic institutions in destination countries, thus undermining the economic gains from liberalized immigration. This paper uses an epidemiological model to investigate how heterogeneously distributed immigrants affected the economic institutions of American states over the 1980–2010 period under the assumption that institutions are highly responsive to changes (...) in the immigrant population. We find that state economic institutions do not change much in response to immigrants. (shrink)

Utilizando a abordagem discursivo-desconstrutiva, este trabalho busca refletir sobre a política linguística nacional veiculada nos Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais de Português (ensino fundamental) cujo discurso se traduz em um método sofisticado de controle e em uma forma eficaz de gerir a mudança (LAWN, 2001, p. 117) para impor uma nova identidade ao professor. Através dessa abordagem, pretende-se apresentar e discutir os resultados analisados, cujo foco recai sobre as representações da (s) identidade (s) e competências construídas para os professores neste discurso, representações (...) sociais da profissão do professor na sociedade contemporânea brasileira, marcada pelos acontecimentos que sucederam ao período ditatorial, portanto, a fase de redemocratização do país e de modernização do Estado frente às exigências da mundialização. Nessa perspectiva, pensamos em e com Foucault (1996, p. 45) quando afirma que “todo sistema de educação é uma maneira política de manter ou de modificar a apropriação dos discursos, com os saberes e os poderes que eles trazem consigo”. (shrink)

Endre Begby’s Prejudice: A Study in Non-Ideal Epistemology engages a wide range of issues of enduring interest to epistemologists, applied ethicists, and anyone concerned with how knowledge and justice intersect. Topics include stereotypes and generics, evidence and epistemic justification, epistemic injustice, ethical-epistemic dilemmas, moral encroachment, and the relations between blame and accountability. Begby applies his views about these topics to an equally wide range of pressing social questions, such as conspiracy theories, misinformation, algorithmic bias, discrimination, and criminal justice. Through it (...) all, the book’s central thesis is that prejudices can be epistemically rational, a corrective against what Begby takes to be the received view that prejudices are always and everywhere bad. However, Begby’s arguments do not engage consistently with relevant empirical literatures, misrepresent the positions of his interlocutors, and rehearse ideas already well-established across a range of intellectual traditions. (shrink)

The most influential philosopher in the analytic tradition of his time, Willard Van Orman Quine changed the way we think about language and its relation to the world. His rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinction, his scepticism about modal logic and essentialism, his celebrated theme of the indeterminacy of translation, and his advocacy of naturalism have challenged key assumptions of the prevailing orthodoxy and helped shape the development of much of recent philosophy.This introduction to Quine's philosophical ideas provides philosophers, students, and (...) generalists with an authoritative analysis of Quine's lasting contributions to philosophy. The major themes covered include the adaptation of the language of modern logic to formulate a criterion of ontological commitment; Quine's own ontological commitments; Duhemian-Holistic empiricism and the attendant rejection of a priori knowledge; the nature and grounds of logical truth; Quine's criticisms of such notions as meaning, synonymy, analyticity, and necessity; the conjecture of the indeterminacy of translation; modal logic; propositional attitudes; and Quine's work on naturalized epistemology.Quine's ideas throughout are contrasted with more traditional views, as well as with contemporaries such as Frege, Russell, Carnap, Davidson, Field, Kripke, and Chomsky, enabling the reader to grasp a clear sense of the place of Quine's views in twentieth-century philosophy and the important criticisms of them. (shrink)

Critics of Darwinian cultural evolution frequently assert that whereas biological evolution is blind and undirected, cultural change is directed or guided by people who possess foresight, thereby invalidating any Darwinian analysis of culture. Here I show this argument to be erroneous and unsupported in several respects. First, critics commonly conflate human foresight with supernatural clairvoyance, resulting in the premature rejection of Darwinian cultural evolution on false logical grounds. Second, the presence of foresight is perfectly consistent with Darwinian evolution, and is (...) found in biology, in the form of open, teleonomic processes such as genetically-biased behavioural learning. Finally, empirical evidence from the social sciences suggests that cultural change appears far less guided and directed, and human foresight far less accurate, than is commonly assumed. (shrink)

There is extensive evidence that adults, children, and some non-human species, represent routine events in the form of hierarchically structured 'action scripts,' and show superior recall and imitation of information at relatively high-levels of this hierarchy. Here we investigate the hypothesis that a 'hierarchical bias' operates in human cultural transmission, acting to impose a hierarchical structure onto descriptions of everyday events, and to increasingly describe those events in terms of higher hierarchical levels. Descriptions of three everyday events expressed entirely in (...) terms of basic low-level actions were transmitted along ten chains each containing four adult human participants. It was found that the proportion of low-level information showed a significant linear decrease with transmission generation, while the proportions of medium- and high-level information showed significant linear increases, consistent with the operation of a hierarchical bias. The findings additionally provide support for script theory in general, and are discussed in relation to hierarchical imitation in non-human primates. (shrink)

(This contribution is primarily based on "Implicit Bias, Moods, and Moral Responsibility," (2018) Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. This version has been shortened and significantly revised to be more accessible and student-oriented.) Are individuals morally responsible for their implicit biases? One reason to think not is that implicit biases are often advertised as unconscious. However, recent empirical evidence consistently suggests that individuals are aware of their implicit biases, although often in partial and inarticulate ways. Here I explore the implications of this evidence (...) of partial awareness for individuals’ moral responsibility. First, I argue that responsibility comes in degrees. Second, I argue that individuals’ partial awareness of their implicit biases makes them (partially) morally responsible for them. I argue by analogy to a close relative of implicit bias: moods. (shrink)

1 In 1954 Karl Popper published an article attempting to show that the identification of the quantitative concept degree of confirmation with the quantitative concept degree of probability is a serious error. The error was presumably committed by J. M. Keynes, H. Reichen bach and R. Carnap. 2 It was Popper's intention then, to expose the error and to introduce an explicatum for the prescientific concept of degree of confirmation. A few months later Y. Bar-Hillel published an article attempting to (...) show that no serious error had been committed (particularly by Carnap) and that the problem introduced by Popper was simply a "verbal one. "3 Popper replied immediately that "Dr. Bar-Hillel forces me [Popper] now to criticize Carnap's theory further," and he [Popper] introduced further objections which, if accepted, destroy Carnap's theory. 4 About eight years after this exchange took place I was in graduate school at the University of Chicago in search of a topic for a doctoral dissertation. An investigation of the issues involved in this exchange seemed to be ideal for me because I had (and still have) a great ad miration for the work of both Carnap and Popper. A thoroughly revised and I hope improved account of that investigation appears in the first five chapters of this book. Put very briefly, what I found were four main points of contention. (shrink)

Yah boo sucks to the grammer wot we lernt in skool! Grammar (and the bad old traditional logic) says that quantifier phrases such as 'nobody', 'everyone', 'all women', 'some men' and 'a man' are in the same category as names such as 'Milly', 'Molly' and 'Mandy'. So, prior to their first corrective lessons, students are awfully muddled, the first and fundamental problem being the Woozle hunt for somebody called 'nobody'. Hoorah for modern logic and logic teachers! The story used to (...) justify our current logics is entirely fictional. The claims about names and quantifier phrases in English are wildly false. Two of the heroes of modern logic, Russell and Hilbert, make the very mistakes which are falsely blamed on traditional logic. The villain, Meinong, turns out to have been working a different patch. Ideas ascribed to traditional grammar are modern inventions. Neither logicians nor grammarians can be trusted to tell the history of either grammar or logic. (shrink)

Tendo em vista que “todo sistema de educação é uma maneira política de manter ou de modificar a apropriação dos discursos, com os saberes e os poderes que eles trazem consigo”, nossa pesquisa visa refletir sobre a nova identidade docente materializada no discurso dos PCNs de língua Portuguesa. Trata-se de traduzir a política oficial de formação de professor e/ou desconstruí-la (Derrida, 1998), analisando e discutindo a(s) identidade(s) e competências atribuídas aos professores, abrindo a possibilidade para questionarmos a identidade unificada e (...) transparente que os documentos oficiais desenham para os professores em serviço. Esperamos, com esse trabalho, contribuir para a construção de uma política de formação de professores sensível à subjetividade heterogênea dos professores no Brasil. (shrink)

Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic is having a major impact on the lives of everyone, but in particular on the health and well-being of older people. It has also disrupted the way that individuals access services and interact with one another, and physical distancing and “Stay at Home” orders have seen digital interaction become a necessity. While these restrictions have highlighted the importance of technology in everyday life, little is known about how older adults have responded to this change. Methods: Two (...) surveys, one in 2019 and another in 2020 collected data on a combined total of 1923 older adults aged 65 years and older in Canada. These looked at how older adults think about and use technology, with the 2020 survey additionally questioning how COVID-19 has impacted their use and attitudes towards technology. Results: While older adults feel more isolated in 2020, many feel positive about the benefits of technology and have increased technology use during the pandemic to support their health, wellness, and communication needs. Discussion: The results highlight the potential of technology for supporting older adults in various aspects of healthy aging. While these results point to the opportunities afforded by technology, challenges remain, such as how social and economic factors influence technology uptake. (shrink)

The most influential philosopher in the analytic tradition of his time, Willard Van Orman Quine changed the way we think about language and its relation to the world. His rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinction, his scepticism about modal logic and essentialism, his celebrated theme of the indeterminacy of translation, and his advocacy of naturalism have challenged key assumptions of the prevailing orthodoxy and helped shape the development of much of recent philosophy. This introduction to Quine's philosophical ideas provides philosophers, students (...) and generalists with an authoritative analysis of his lasting contributions to philosophy. Quine's ideas throughout are contrasted with more traditional views, as well as with contemporaries such as Frege, Russell, Carnap, Davidson, Field, Kripke and Chomsky, enabling the reader to grasp a clear sense of the place of Quine's views in twentieth-century philosophy and the important criticisms of them. (shrink)

The History of Philosophical and Formal Logic introduces ideas and thinkers central to the development of philosophical and formal logic. From its Aristotelian origins to the present-day arguments, logic is broken down into four main time periods: Antiquity and the Middle Ages The early modern period High modern period Early 20th century Each new time frame begins with an introductory overview highlighting themes and points of importance. Chapters discuss the significance and reception of influential works and look at historical arguments (...) in the context of contemporary debates. To support independent study, comprehensive lists of primary and secondary reading are included at the end of chapters, along with exercises and discussion questions. By clearly presenting and explaining the changes to logic across the history of philosophy, The History of Philosophical and Formal Logic constructs an easy-to-follow narrative. This is an ideal starting point for students looking to understand the historical development of logic. (shrink)