Barsalou's elision of the personal and sub-personal levels tends to conceal the fact that he is, at best, providing the “specs” but not yet a model for his hypothesized perceptual symbols.

Discovering high-utility itemsets (HUIs) consists of finding sets of items that yield a high profit in customer transaction databases. An important limitation of traditional high-utility itemset mining (HUIM) is that only the utility measure is used for assessing the interestingness of patterns. This leads to finding several itemsets that have a high profit but contain items that are weakly correlated. To address this issue, this paper proposes to integrate the concept of correlation in HUIM to find profitable itemsets that are (...) highly correlated, using the all-confidence and bond measures. An efficient algorithm named FCHM (fast correlated high-utility itemset miner) is proposed to efficiently discover correlated high-utility itemsets (CHIs). Two versions of the algorithm are proposed: FCHM|$_{all\text{-}confidence}$| and FCHM|$_{bond}$|⁠, which are based on the all-confidence and bond measures, respectively. An experimental evaluation was done using four real-life benchmark datasets from the HUIM literature: mushroom, retail, kosarak and foodmart. Results show that FCHM is efficient and can prune a huge amount of weakly CHIs. (shrink)

De Interpretatione is among Aristotle's most influential and widely read writings; C. W. A. Whitaker presents the first systematic study of this work, and offers a radical new view of its aims, its structure, and its place in Aristotle's system. He shows that De Interpretatione is not a disjointed essay on ill-connected subjects, as traditionally thought, but a highly organized and systematic treatise on logic, argument, and dialectic.

The authors present a case study involving truth telling responsibilities in the setting of nonepileptic seizures. Specifically, over the course of several suspected nonepileptic seizures, a patient’s seizures stopped after he received a saline flush meant to precede the administration of anti-seizure medication. The patient and his surrogate believed he had received the medication each time, and the team wondered whether they should disclose the truth. Some worried that disclosure would reinforce the suspected psychogenic behavior, exacerbating the patient’s condition. In (...) this way, the case study presents a twist on the traditional truth telling archetype. While most truth telling cases center on navigating cultural differences or worries about emotional harm, this case presented concerns about medical harm in the form of exacerbating the patient’s condition. The authors describe the complex patient-family-team dynamic that preceded this ethical dilemma, describe the case, analyze the ethical issue, and describe the outcome. (shrink)

I present the symbol grounding problem in the larger context of a materialist theory of content and then present two problems for causal, teleo-functional accounts of content. This leads to a distinction between two kinds of mental representations: presentations and symbols; only the latter are cognitive. Based on Milner and Goodale’s dual route model of vision, I posit the existence of precise interfaces between cognitive systems that are activated during object recognition. Interfaces are constructed as a child learns, and is (...) taught, how to interact with its environment; hence, interface structure has a social determinant essential for symbol grounding. Symbols are encoded in the brain to exploit these interfaces, by having projections to the interfaces that are activated by what they symbolise. I conclude by situating my proposal in the context of Harnad’s (1990) solution to the symbol grounding problem and responding to three standard objections. (shrink)

Jerry Fodor's argument for an innate language of thought continues to be a hurdle for researchers arguing that natural languages provide us with richer conceptual systems than our innate cognitive resources. I argue that because the logical/formal terms of natural languages are given a usetheory of meaning, unlike predicates, logical/formal terms might be learned without a mediating internal representation. In that case, our innate representational system might have less logical structure than a natural language, making it possible that we augment (...) our innate representational system and improve our ability to think by learning a natural language. (shrink)

We focus on Folieism, Rey's brand of Eliminativism about languages, according to which words, sentences, phonemes, and such, and consequently languages, do not exist; they are intentional inexistents, on a par with unicorns that speakers, under an ineluctable illusion, mistake as real. We present a simplified reconstruction of his argument, challenge what we take to be its presuppositions, and argue that its conclusion has unwanted social/ethical consequences and construes linguistics writ large in a strange light, as a kind of pretense, (...) leading us to reject Folieism. (shrink)

I demonstrate that locking on, a key notion in Jerry Fodor's most recent theory of content, supplemented informational atomism (SIA), is cashed out in terms of asymmetric dependence, the central notion in his earlier theory of content. I use this result to argue that SIA is incompatible with the language of thought hypothesis because the constraints on the causal relations into which symbols can enter imposed by the theory of content preclude the causal relations needed between symbols for them to (...) serve as the elements of the medium of thought. (shrink)

I consider how several results from cognitive science bear on the nature of representation and how representations might be structured. Distinguishing two notions of representation, presentations, which are cases of direct sensing, and symbols, which stand in for something else, I argue that only symbols pose a philosophical problem for naturalizing content. What is required is an account of how one thing can stand in for another. Milner and Goodale’s dual route model of vision offers a model for this ‘stand-in’ (...) relation. Following this model, symbols must play a functional role of activating cognitive operations relevant to what the symbols stand in for. What emerges is an interconnected network of symbols whose tokenings are central – as opposed to modular – cognitive operations. A consequence of this view, which I call an acquired language of thought (ALOT) since most of the symbols humans use are the words of a natural language, is that the framework for central cognition is constructed during the acquisition of a natural language lexicon.Presentations and Symbols: What Cognition Requires of Representationalism. (shrink)

Palmer=s main intuition pump, the Acolor machine, @ greatly underestimates the complexity of a system isomorphic in color experience to humans. The neuroscientific picture of this complexity makes clear that the brain actively produces our experiences by processes that science can investigate, thereby supporting functionalism and leaving no (color) room for a passive observer to witness subisomorphic experiential differences.

We offer a novel argument for one-boxing in Newcomb’s Problem. The intentional states of a rational person are psychologically coherent across time, and rational decisions are made against this backdrop. We compare this coherence constraint with a golf swing, which to be effective must include a follow-through after the ball is in flight. Decisions, like golf swings, are extended processes, and their coherence with other psychological states of a player in the Newcomb scenario links her choice with the way she (...) is predicted in a common cause structure. As a result, the standard argument for two-boxing is mistaken. (shrink)

This article seeks to reinterpret the process of state and class formation in “peripheral” societies—notably Syria—through a contextualized reading of Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire influenced by the approach of Political Marxism (PM). In light of PM’s claim that capitalism did not emerge in France until the late nineteenth century, it draws a picture of post-revolutionary French society in which the legacy of the precapitalist Absolutist state still determined the nature of ruling class reproduction and class struggle, centered on the state apparatus (...) as the principal source of appropriation. These insights on the nature of ruling class appropriation and the centrality of the state are then applied to the case of post-Ottoman Syria, uncovering parallels with class struggles in post-revolutionary France rooted in the “Jacobin” politics of a state-dependent bourgeoisie of officials and officers. It proposes to rethink the contested moments of transition in terms of “alternative modernities” that developed in the absence of generalized capitalist relations of production. (shrink)

In "The pitfalls of heritability," a review of Edward O. Wilson’s Consilience Times Literary Supplement, Feb 12, 1999, p33], Jerry Hirsch claims to have convicted Wilson of a "confusion about genetic similarity and difference." In his book, Wilson claims that if we assume that "a mere one thousand genes out of the fifty to a hundred thousand genes in the human genome were to exist in two forms in the population," the probability of any two humans--excluding identical siblings--having the same (...) genotype is vanishingly small. Hirsch points out that a single genotype can be produced in more than one way, thus increasing the likelihood of a single genotype recurring in the human population. Hirsch’s point is fair enough as far it goes, but it does not go nearly far enough. Hirsch has failed to carry out all the relevant calculations needed to determine the probability of two humans having the same genotype. In the realm of Vast numbers ("Very much greater than ASTronomical"--Dennett, 1995, p109), increased likelihood in and of itself tells us nothing. Here, then, are some of the relevant calculations. (shrink)

Both Carnap and Quine made significant contributions to the philosophy of mathematics despite their diversedviews. Carnap endorsed the dichotomy between analytic and synthetic knowledge and classified certainmathematical questions as internal questions appealing to logic and convention. On the contrary, Quine wasopposed to the analytic-synthetic distinction and promoted a holistic view of scientific inquiry. The purpose of thispaper is to argue that in light of the recent advancement of experimental mathematics such as Monte Carlosimulations, limiting mathematical inquiry to the domain of (...) logic is unjustified. Robustness studies implemented inMonte Carlo Studies demonstrate that mathematics is on par with other experimental-based sciences. (shrink)

Postcolonial science studies entails ostensibly contradictory critical and empirical commitments. Science studies scholars influenced by Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers embrace forms of realist, radical empiricism, while postcolonial studies scholars influenced by Jacques Derrida trace the limits of the knowable. This essay takes their common use of the term cosmopolitics as an unexpected point of departure for reconciling Derrida’s program with Stengers’s and Latour’s. I read Derrida’s critique of hospitality and Stengers’s and Latour’s ontological politics as necessary complements for conceiving (...) a care-oriented subalternist cosmopolitics, a process of composing common worlds that remains attentive to the limits of representation. (shrink)

Do famous athletes have special obligations to act virtuously? A number of philosophers have investigated this question by examining whether famous athletes are subject to special role model obligations (Wellman 2003; Feezel 2005; Spurgin 2012). In this paper we will take a different approach and give a positive response to this question by arguing for the position that sport and gaming celebrities are ‘ambassadors of the game’: moral agents whose vocations as rule-followers have unique implications for their non-lusory lives. According (...) to this idea, the actions of a game’s players and other stakeholders—especially the actions of its stars—directly affect the value of the game itself, a fact which generates additional moral reasons to behave in a virtuous manner. We will begin by explaining the three main positions one may take with respect to the question: moral exceptionalism, moral generalism, and moral exemplarism. We will argue that no convincing case for moral exemplarism has thus far been made, which gives us reason to look for new ways to defend this position. We then provide our own ‘ambassadors of the game’ account and argue that it gives us good reason to think that sport and game celebrities are subject to special obligations to act virtuously. (shrink)

An examination of David Hume's philosophy of religion that situates his conception "true religion" within the context of his overall science of human nature, his rejection of popular religion, and his Ciceronian influence"--Provided by publisher.

We all experience loneliness at some time in our lives and it often motivates people, consciously or otherwise, to enter treatment. Yet it is rarely explicitly addressed in psychoanalytic literature. Loneliness and Longing rectifies this oversight by thoroughly exploring this painful psychological state. In this book contributors address the inner sense of loneliness âe" that is feeling alone even in the company of others âe" by drawing on different aspects of loneliness and longing. Topics covered include: loneliness in the consulting (...) room the relationship between loneliness and love the effects of social networking and the internet how loneliness changes throughout the life-cycle healing the analystâe(tm)s loneliness. Loneliness and Longing draws on both theory and practice to discuss ways to help people to understand and cope with this important emotional state, encouraging them to make loneliness and longing less pervasive in their lives. This will be ideal reading for analysts, psychotherapists, and related practitioners facing the challenges of loneliness in their consulting rooms. (shrink)

In ancient China, a revered Taoist sage named Zhuangzi told many parables. In Existential Psychology and the Way of the Tao, a selection of these parables will be featured. Following each parable, an eminent existential psychologist will share a personal and scholarly reflection on the meaning and relevance of the parable for psychotherapy and contemporary life. The major tenets of Zhuangzi's philosophy are featured. Taoist concepts of emptiness, stillness, Wu Wei (i.e. intentional non-intentionality), epistemology, dreams and the nature of reality, (...) character building in the midst of pain, meaning and the centrality of relationships, authenticity, self-care, the freedom that can come from one's willingness to confront death, spiritual freedom, and gradations of therapeutic care are topics highlighted in this book. (shrink)

Relative essentialism, the view that multiple objects about which there are distinct de re modal truths can occupy the same space at the same time, is a metaphysical view that dissolves a number of metaphysical issues. The present essay constructs and defends relative essentialism and argues that it is implicit in some of the ideas of W. V. Quine and Donald Davidson. Davidson’s published views about individuation and sameness can accommodate the common-sense insights about change and persistence of Aristotle and (...) Kripke. Aristotle and Kripke have to give up unmediated direct reference resting on a unique correct articulation of reality into entities. Davidson has to acknowledge a distinction between descriptions giving accidental and those giving essential features of an object. Quine and Davidson were in a position to be a relative essentialist, but were over-impressed by supervenience. The relative essentialist view of beings developed from Quine and Davidson strongly suggests the Heideggerian distinction between beings and Being, and is the perspective from which analytic philosophy can engage that topic. Relative essentialism also connects analytic philosophy to Derrida’s thinking about differance. (shrink)

I met Ernie in 1965 on the wrestling mats of our high school in North Bergen, New Jersey, a township on top of the plateau overlooking Hoboken and across the Hudson River from Manhattan. Hoboken then was still the Hoboken of Elia Kazan’s “On the Waterfront” (1954).1 Even though the Hudson was less than a mile across at that point, it was a wide spiritual divide. We were Jersey boys, not New Yorkers. Ernie was as ambitious as I was about (...) wrestling, and, so, after the season was over, we used to take a bus to Journal Square in Jersey City, and then walk about eight city blocks to a gym to lift weights. In those days, high schools didn’t have weight rooms; and gyms were scarce, men only, quite filthy, and entirely devoid of cardio equipment and Nautilus machines. They were all sweat, grunts, groans, and clanking iron. By 1968, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, after a grueling wrestling practice at the high school, we would take a bus to New York City (it took about a half hour to get into “the City” by bus, less if the Lincoln Tunnel was not crowded), and then a short subway ride up to the New York Athletic Club on 59th street, across from Central Park, to spend a couple of hours working out with former university wrestling stars—guys in their mid-twenties from places like Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Iowa—who were training to make the Olympic team. Even with all of this wrestling time, we were frustrated by the fact that there was nowhere to work out on Sundays. We investigated and found out that the Jersey City YMCA had a wrestling mat and was open on Sundays. We then spent our Sunday afternoons working out there, so as not to miss a day of wrestling. Wrestling was our savior: a healthy way to get out anger.2 But it wasn’t all wrestling. We did something else too: We talked. We spent many hours together introspecting out loud, and just trying to make sense of things. Ernie has mentioned in print one early topic of discussion: “We spent years trying to solve various logical conundra like how on earth the Virgin Mary could have been a virgin.... (shrink)

This paper investigates the emotional import of literary devices deployed in fiction. Reflecting on the often-favored approach in the analytic tradition that locates fictional characters, events, and narratives as sources of readers’ emotions, I attempt to broaden the scope of analysis by accounting for how literary devices trigger non-cognitive emotions. I argue that giving more expansive consideration to literary devices by which authors present content facilitates a better understanding of how fiction engages emotion. In doing so, I also explore the (...) somatic dimension of reading fiction. (shrink)

This book, first published in 1975, provides critical and comprehensive introduction to the philosophy of Leibniz.

This reconsideration of Hume’s classic essay “Of Miracles” via the lens of American pragmatist ways of thinking about history and power shifts our attention from Hume’s epistemic concerns about the legitimacy of witnesses and testimony to his distaste for sacred history, his critical stance regarding the social force of revelation, and his disdain for religious authority. To view Hume’s essay both as an articulation of a critical philosophy of history and as an exercise in moral dynamism (social power or, authority, (...) is a result of epistemic transactions), is to intervene in both Hume studies and Contemporary Pragmatism. (shrink)

In this paper I want to do the following things. First I want to show that in the part of the Theaetetus where the relationship between knowledge and perception is examined, the concept of knowledge that is in question is very clearly characterized. We are left in no doubt as to what is to count as knowing. Secondly I want to unravel in some detail the case that Socrates puts on Protagoras’ behalf where he draws on what Protagoras actually wrote (...) (151 E-152C); as opposed to what he may have taught secretly to his pupils (152C-160D). Thirdly I wish to argue that if we let the dialogue speak for itself, it is manifest that this case put up on Protagoras’ behalf at 151 E-152C is not overthrown; it is not even shaken. (shrink)