Open peer commentary on the article “A First-Person Analysis Using Third Person-Data as a Generative Method: A Case Study of Surprise in Depression” by Natalie Depraz, Maria Gyemant & Thomas Desmidt. Upshot: In the first part of the commentary, I argue that the some of the main objectives of Depraz et al.’s target article remain somewhat unfulfilled. In the second part, I touch upon and briefly discuss the issue of what constitutes a valid method of researching experience.

Open peer commentary on the article “Going Beyond Theory: Constructivism and Empirical Phenomenology” by Urban Kordeš. Upshot: I discuss three of the target article’s topics that I find either problematic or important. First, I discuss a potentially dangerous consequence of claiming that empirical phenomenology necessarily calls for a constructivist foundation. Second, I consider the threat to intersubjective validation and the related problem that the author does not specify what technique one should use for training and collecting data in research on (...) experience. Third, I briefly touch upon the question of the integration of empirical phenomenology and cognitive science. (shrink)

In the following article we first present the growing trend of incorporating neuroscience into the law, and the growing acceptance of and trust in neuroscience’s mechanistic and reductionistic explanations of the human mind. We then present and discuss some studies that show how nudging peoples’ beliefs about matters related to human agency (such as free will, decision-making, or self-control) towards a more deterministic, mechanistic and/or reductionistic conception, exerts an influence on their very actions, mentality, and brain processes. We suggest that (...) the neuroscientific view of the human mind exerts an influence on the very cognitive phenomena neuroscience falsely believes to be studying objectively. This holds especially when we consider the systematic integration of neuroscience into the public domain, such as the law. For, such an integration acts as a reinforcement of the public’s and legal decision-makers’ endorsement of and trust in neuroscience’s view of human nature that further changes how people think and act. Such looping effects of neurolaw are probably inevitable. Accordingly, we should be aware of the scope of neuroscientific explanations and be careful not to overstate neuroscientific evidence and findings in legal contexts. (shrink)

In this book, T. L. Short places the notorious difficulties of Peirce's important writings in a more productive light, arguing that he wrote philosophy as a scientist, by framing conjectures intended to be refined or superseded in the inquiries they initiate. He argues also that Peirce held that the methods and metaphysics of modern science are amended as inquiry progresses, making metaphysics a branch of empirical knowledge. Additionally, Short shows that Peirce's scientific work expanded empiricism on empirical grounds, grounding his (...) phenomenology and subverting the fact/value dichotomy, and that he understood statistical explanations in nineteenth-century science as reintroducing the idea of final causation, now made empirical. Those innovations underlie Peirce's late ideas of a normative science and of philosophy as a branch of science. Short's rich and original study shows us how to read Peirce's writings and why they are worth reading. (shrink)

I show that systematic first-person inquiry into the lived experience of decision-making in naturalistic settings in part affords a different understanding and conceptualization of the phenomenon ….

I sympathize with Claire Petitmengin’s idea that coming back into contact with the lived experience is important if we are to change the way we live our lives. However, on the path towards ….

I first argue that rigorous and systematic first-person research on lived experience is essential to understanding irreality as experience. Then, based on first-person research, I briefly show that….

This essay argues that normative judgments, in general, and moral judgments, in particular, are "truth apt" and can be objects of belief. Other main claims are: judgments about reasons, if interpreted as true, do not have metaphysical implications that are incompatible with a scientific view of the world. Two kinds of normative claims should be distinguished: substantive claims about what reasons people have and structural claims about what attitudes people must have insofar as they are rational. Employing this distinction, the (...) practical significance of substantive normative judgments is explained, and critical analysis of expressivist and Kantian views on this question is offered. (shrink)

While philosophers hold that it is patently absurd to blame robots or hold them morally responsible [1], a series of recent empirical studies suggest that people do ascribe blame to AI systems and robots in certain contexts [2]. This is disconcerting: Blame might be shifted from the owners, users or designers of AI systems to the systems themselves, leading to the diminished accountability of the responsible human agents [3]. In this paper, we explore one of the potential underlying reasons for (...) robot blame, namely the folk's willingness to ascribe inculpating mental states or "mens rea" to robots. In a vignette-based experiment (N=513), we presented participants with a situation in which an agent knowingly runs the risk of bringing about substantial harm. We manipulated agent type (human v. group agent v. AI-driven robot) and outcome (neutral v. bad), and measured both moral judgment (wrongness of the action and blameworthiness of the agent) and mental states attributed to the agent (recklessness and the desire to inflict harm). We found that (i) judgments of wrongness and blame were relatively similar across agent types, possibly because (ii) attributions of mental states were, as suspected, similar across agent types. This raised the question - also explored in the experiment - whether people attribute knowledge and desire to robots in a merely metaphorical way (e.g., the robot "knew" rather than really knew). However, (iii), according to our data people were unwilling to downgrade to mens rea in a merely metaphorical sense when given the chance. Finally, (iv), we report a surprising and novel finding, which we call the inverse outcome effect on robot blame: People were less willing to blame artificial agents for bad outcomes than for neutral outcomes. This suggests that they are implicitly aware of the dangers of overattributing blame to robots when harm comes to pass, such as inappropriately letting the responsible human agent off the moral hook. (shrink)

Byzantine Empire; economic and social conditions; history.

"Divination and Human Nature" casts a new perspective on the rich tradition of ancient divination--the reading of divine signs in oracles, omens, and dreams. Popular attitudes during classical antiquity saw these readings as signs from the gods while modern scholars have treated such beliefs as primitive superstitions. In this book, Peter Struck reveals instead that such phenomena provoked an entirely different accounting from the ancient philosophers. These philosophers produced subtle studies into what was an odd but observable fact--that humans could (...) sometimes have uncanny insights--and their work signifies an early chapter in the cognitive history of intuition. Examining the writings of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Neoplatonists, Struck demonstrates that they all observed how, setting aside the charlatans and swindlers, some people had premonitions defying the typical bounds of rationality. Given the wide differences among these ancient thinkers, Struck notes that they converged on seeing this surplus insight as an artifact of human nature, projections produced under specific conditions by our physiology. For the philosophers, such unexplained insights invited a speculative search for an alternative and more naturalistic system of cognition. Recovering a lost piece of an ancient tradition, "Divination and Human Nature" illustrates how philosophers of the classical era interpreted the phenomena of divination as a practice closer to intuition and instinct than magic. (shrink)

Explores the nature and types of mystical experience and discusses the value of mysticism for humanity.

Мета. Актуалізувати питання про використання біографічного методу і встановлення його взаємозв'язку з іншими науковими методами та методологічними принципами в історико-антропологічних дослідженнях. Теоретичний базис. Розгляд біографічного методу в історико-антропологічних студіях здійснений у річищі загального теоретичного «ренесансу» класичної гуманітаристики, що значною мірою викликаний невизначеністю і багатозначністю теоретичних дискурсів і дискурсивних практик постмодернізму, висуває перед дослідником низку нових завдань, серед яких – «виявлення неявного», тобто не простого описування результатів культурної діяльності людини в безпосередній даності, а розкривання часом неусвідомлених механізмів цієї діяльності, глибинних «пружин» (...) культури, що забезпечують її рух. Наукова новизна. Автори даної розвідки не торкаються соціологічної проблематики біографічних досліджень, які широко репрезентовані в працях сучасних західних дослідників. Предмет нашого повідомлення – біографічний метод, що є генетично висхідним від Ш.-О. Сент-Бева, який вважав, що головним завданням біографа є здійснення аналізу особистості видатної людини. Очевидність того факту, що дослідження в царині гуманітаристики загалом і в цивільній історії зокрема мають враховувати не тільки зміни соціокультурних аспектів буття, але й відповідну трансформацію методологічних підходів до аналізу епіфеноменів «текучої сучасності», привела нас до розуміння необхідності історіософського дослідження питання про рецепцію біографічного методу в історико-антропологічних працях з наступною історичною, філософською, культурологічною репрезентацією біографічного методу. Висновки. Історіософські трансформації останніх десятиліть з їх радикальною зміною концепцій, методів і прийомів повертають дослідника до вдосконалення біографічної методології, яка сьогодні репрезентує антропоцентризм, що наповнює науку гуманістичним змістом. Використання даної методології потребує від науковця дотримання основних методологічних принципів і оволодіння іншими науковими методами, насамперед діалектикою. (shrink)