Hohwy et al.’s (2008) model of binocular rivalry (BR) is taken as a classic illustration of predictive coding’s explanatory power. I revisit the account and show that it cannot explain the role of reward in BR. I then consider a more recent version of Bayesian model averaging, which recasts the role of reward in (BR) in terms of optimism bias. If we accept this account, however, then we must reconsider our conception of perception. On this latter view, I argue, organisms (...) engage in what amounts to policy-driven, motivated perception. (shrink)

An agent exercises instrumental rationality to the degree that she adopts appropriate means to achieving her ends. Adopting appropriate means to achieving one’s ends can, in turn, involve overcoming one’s strongest desires, that is, it can involve exercising synchronic self-control. However, contra prominent approaches, I deny that synchronic self-control is possible. Specifically, I draw on computational models and empirical evidence from cognitive neuroscience to describe a naturalistic, multi-system model of the mind. On this model, synchronic self-control is impossible. Must we, (...) then, give up on a meaningful conception of instrumental rationality? No. A multi-system view still permits something like synchronic self-control: an agent can control her very strong desires. Adopting a multi-system model of the mind thus places limitations on our conceptions of instrumental rationality, without requiring that we abandon the notion altogether. (shrink)

I argue for the role of reinforcement learning in the philosophy of mind. To start, I make several assumptions about the nature of reinforcement learning and its instantiation in minds like ours. I then review some of the contributions of reinforcement learning methods have made across the so-called 'decision sciences.' Finally, I show how principles from reinforcement learning can shape philosophical debates regarding the nature of perception and characterisations of desire.

In this opinionated review, I draw attention to some of the contributions reinforcement learning can make to questions in the philosophy of mind. In particular, I highlight reinforcement learning's foundational emphasis on the role of reward in agent learning, and canvass two ways in which the framework may advance our understanding of perception and motivation.

This paper presents an empirical solution to the puzzle of weakness of will. Specifically, it presents a theory of action, grounded in contemporary cognitive neuroscientific accounts of decision making, that explains the phenomenon of weakness of will without resulting in a puzzle.

I describe a suite of reinforcement learning environments in which artificial agents learn to value and respond to moral content and contexts. I illustrate the core principles of the framework by characterizing one such environment, or “gridworld,” in which an agent learns to trade-off between monetary profit and fair dealing, as applied in a standard behavioral economic paradigm. I then highlight the core technical and philosophical advantages of the learning approach for modeling moral cognition, and for addressing the so-called value (...) alignment problem in AI. (shrink)

We chart how neuroscience and philosophy have together advanced our understanding of moral judgment with implications for when it goes well or poorly. The field initially focused on brain areas associated with reason versus emotion in the moral evaluations of sacrificial dilemmas. But new threads of research have studied a wider range of moral evaluations and how they relate to models of brain development and learning. By weaving these threads together, we are developing a better understanding of the neurobiology of (...) moral judgment in adulthood and to some extent in childhood and adolescence. Combined with rigorous evidence from psychology and careful philosophical analysis, neuroscientific evidence can even help shed light on the extent of moral knowledge and on ways to promote healthy moral development. (shrink)

I propose that the successes and contributions of reinforcement learning urge us to see the mind in a new light, namely, to recognise that the mind is fundamentally evaluative in nature.

In developing artificial intelligence (AI), researchers often benchmark against human performance as a measure of progress. Is this kind of comparison possible for moral cognition? Given that human moral judgment often hinges on intangible properties like “intention” which may have no natural analog in artificial agents, it may prove difficult to design a “like‐for‐like” comparison between the moral behavior of artificial and human agents. What would a measure of moral behavior for both humans and AI look like? We unravel the (...) complexity of this question by discussing examples within reinforcement learning and generative AI, and we examine how the puzzle of evaluating artificial agents' moral cognition remains open for further investigation within cognitive science. (shrink)

At[aut]Walther, Gerdathe[aut]Stein, Edith beginning of the twentieth century, early phenomenologyPhenomenology examined topics such as emotions, feelings and sociality. The main researchers in this field included philosophers belonging to the Munich and Göttingen phenomenological circles, especially Else Voigtländer, Willy Haas, Moritz Geiger[aut]Geiger, Moritz, Max Scheler[aut]Scheler, Max, Edith Stein[aut]Stein, Edith, Gerda Walther[aut]Walther, Gerda, Aurel Kolnei and José Ortega y Gasset. Gerda Walther[aut]Walther, Gerda’s contribution to early phenomenologyPhenomenology was her Ph.D. thesis Ein Beitrag zur Ontologie der sozialen Gemeinschaften which she wrote under (...) the supervision of the Munich phenomenologist Alexander Pfänder[aut]Pfänder, Alexander. (shrink)

This paper investigates the norm of presupposition, as one pervasive type of indirect speech act. It argues against the view that sees presuppositions as an indirect counterpart of the direct speech act of assertion and proposes instead that they are much more similar to the direct speech act of assumption. More concretely, it suggests that the norm that governs presuppositions is not an epistemic or doxastic attitude such as knowledge, justified belief, or mere belief; it's a practical attitude, most plausibly (...) the attitude of rational acceptance. This view has important ramifications well beyond debates in philosophy of language and linguistics. It affects not only our view of which speech act sequences are fine and which are off; it bears on whether presuppositions can function as testimony, whether they can be lies, and whether they are ontologically committal, thus addressing central topics in epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics. (shrink)

Consequentialism is the view that the rightness or wrongness of actions depend solely on their consequences. It is one of the most influential, and controversial, of all ethical theories. In this book, Julia Driver introduces and critically assesses consequentialism in all its forms. After a brief historical introduction to the problem, Driver examines utilitarianism, and the arguments of its most famous exponents, John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, and explains the fundamental questions underlying utilitarian theory: what value is to (...) be specified and how it is to be maximized. Driver also discusses indirect forms of consequentialism, the important theories of motive consequentialism and virtue consequentialism, and explains why the distinction between subjective and objective consequentialism is so important. Including helpful features such as a glossary, chapter summaries, and annotated further reading at the end of each chapter, Consequentialism is ideal for students seeking an authoritative and clearly explained survey of this important problem. (shrink)

What is first philosophy today? In Unity and Aspect, the questioning begins with a new (old) approach to metaphysics: being is implied; it is implied in everything that is; it is an implication. BUt then, the history of philosophy must be rethought completely - for being implies unity, and time, and the other of time, namely, aspect. THe effect on the self and on self-understanding is radical: we can no longer be thought as human beings; rather, reaching back to the (...) ancient Greek name for us (phos), Haas seeks to rearticulate us as illuminating, as illuminating ourselves and others, and as implicated in our illuminations. UNity and Aspect then provokes us to problematize words and deeds, thoughts and things - and this means reconsidering our assumptions about history and survival, meaning and universality, sensibility and intimacy, knowledge and intentionality, action and improvisation, language and truth. ANd if Haas suspends the privilege enjoyed by our traditional philosophical concepts, this has implications for fields as diverse as ontology and phenomenology, ethics and aesthetics, education and linguistics, law and politics. (shrink)

Khandro Rinpoche: A Needle Compassionately Sticking Out of a Cushion -- Dagmola Sakya: From the Palace to the Blood Bank -- Tenzin Palmo (Diane Perry): Sandpaper for the Ego -- Sangye Khandro (Nanci Gay Gustafson): Enlightenment Is a Full-time Job -- Pema Chödrön (Deirdre Blomfield-Brown): Relaxing into Groundlessness -- Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel: A Wonder Woman Hermit -- Chagdud Khadro (Jane Dedman): Like Iron Filings Drawn to a Magnet -- Karma Lekshe Tsomo (Patricia Zenn): Surfing to Realization -- Thubten Chodron (Cherry Greene): (...) A Rebel in Robes -- Roshi Joan Halifax: Fearless, Fierce, and Fragile -- Tsultrim Allione (Joan Rousmanière Ewing): The Enlightened Feminist -- Khandro Tsering Chödron: The Queen of Dakinis. (shrink)

Casey, in Supernatural, alludes to one of the oldest and most resilient arguments against the existence of God, the problem of evil. This problem arises from an apparent conflict between the existence of evil and the attributes that Western theists attribute to God. Casey's challenge to the existence of God is called the logical problem of evil by philosophers. Casey's problem of evil focused on an apparent logical inconsistency between believing in a God that is all‐powerful, all‐knowing, and all‐good, while (...) at the same time believing that evil exists. The soul‐making defense doesn't appear to be enough to solve the problem for Dean. While it seems true that an all‐powerful, all‐good, all‐knowing God would have the power to create a universe with soul‐growth, containing significantly less evil and suffering than the universe of Supernatural, that's just not Dean's world. (shrink)

Our concept of politics – especially democracy – presupposes a principle of friendship, but our principle of friendship comes out of an understanding of the friend. However, from the Greeks to Derrida, such relations have been dominated by a philosophy of presence and/or absence, limiting our very idea of politics and friendship. A radical break with this tradition is only possible through an other way of speaking to, thinking about, acting toward, and being a friend, and the politics thereof. The (...) Aristotelian saying, “O friends, [there is] no friend,” provides a clue – for “being” is not there, not present in the Greek, nor absent therefrom, but just implied. Then the being of the friend, and of politics (and of being), is an implication. So, if we hope to be friends, and to be political, we must think and act and speak by implication: O friends no friend, and O democrats no democracy. (shrink)

Beziehungen sind nicht gegeben, sie werden gemeinsam gemacht. Der Band untersucht Relationalitäten als prozessuale Aushandlungen zwischen Künsten und Wissenschaften, zwischen gebautem Raum und sozialem Körper, zwischen theoretischem und poetisch-künstlerischem Schreiben und Sprechen, zwischen Form, Material und Handlung. Plädiert wird für eine Wissenspolitik der Künste, die von einer radikalen Verstricktheit theoretischer, ästhetischer, medialer und gesellschaftlicher Praktiken und Techniken ausgeht. Mit Beiträgen von / with contributions by Bini Adamczak, Emily Apter, Alice Chauchat, Beatriz Colomina, Gradinger / Schubot, Annika Haas, Maximilian (...) class='Hi'>Haas, Orit Halpern, Tom Holert, Amy Lien & Enzo Camacho, Maurício Liesen, Hanna Magauer, Michaela Ott, Sibylle Peters, Dennis Pohl, Possible Bodies (Helen Pritchard, Jara Rocha, Femke Snelting), Ghassan Salhab, Mirjam Schaub, Melanie Sehgal, Nora Sternfeld, Kathrin Thiele, Jeremy Wade, Brigitte Weingart. (shrink)

This book examines the history of the major paradigms of political science and proposes a new model for political theory. The book champions a neobehavioral political science including multimethodological innovations, cross-testing of paradigms, and tenets of a new political science that can rise to become a truly theoretical science.

This paper argues that the vitalist monisms of Anne Conway and Margaret Cavendish. Even though Conway is often cited as a proponent of a thoroughgoing ‘spiritualist’ ontology and Cavendish as the advocate of a similarly thoroughgoing materialism, their views turn out to be much closer than they may initially seem. Apart from highlighting the more radical nature of Conway’s position, such a reframing also has the added advantage of bringing the similarities between her own ‘spiritual’ monism and the vitalist ‘materialisms’ (...) of her time into sharper relief. As F. Wunderlich emphasizes, the notion of subtle matter pervaded the natural sciences of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. The chapter provides a brief sketch of Cavendish’s ‘materialism’ and compares it to Conway’s view of created substance, drawing out a number of relevant similarities. It asks what may have motivated Conway and Cavendish to move beyond the materialism-immaterialism divide by ‘spiritualizing’ matter in this way. (shrink)

Looks at the psychological nature of depression and discusses its portrayal in literature and art.

This entry provides an overview of the current state of the debate between epistemic permissivists and impermissivists. Three important choice points for the permissivist are identified, and implications are discussed for plausibility of the resulting versions of permissivism.

Discussions about the morality of slavery are a central part of the history of early modern philosophy. This book explores the philosophical ideas, theories, and arguments that occur in eighteenth-century debates about slavery, with a particular focus on the role that race plays in these debates. This exploration reveals how closely Blackness and slavery had come to be associated and how common it was to believe that Black people are natural slaves, or naturally destined for slavery. The book examines not (...) just well-known authors like David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but also less widely studied philosophers like Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, Lemuel Haynes, and Olympe de Gouges. By presenting philosophically important aspects of debates about slavery in eighteenth-century North America and Europe, the book aims to be a valuable resource for scholars, instructors, and students who are curious about a topic that historians of philosophy have so far neglected. (shrink)

The format of this volume in the Library of Living Philosophers series provides for a detailed interaction between those who interpret and critique Julia Kristeva's work and Kristeva herself, giving broad coverage, from diverse viewpoints, of all the major topics establishing her reputation. This work begins with her autobiography, which provides an excellent introduction to her work, situating it in relation to major political, intellectual, and cultural movements of the time. The major part of the book is comprised of (...) thirty-six essays by Kristeva's foremost interpreters and critics, together with her replies to the essays. These encounters cover an exceptionally wide range of theoretical and literary writing. The strong international and multidisciplinary focus includes authors from over ten countries, and spans the fields of philosophy, semiotics, literature, psychoanalysis, feminist thought, political theory, art, and religion. A comprehensive bibliography of works by Kristeva is included. (shrink)

Ausgehend von Lucian Freuds Bild »Painter Working, Reflection« (1993) entwirft Julia Regina Meer eine korporale Philosophie der Bilder. Das Bild avanciert dabei zum Ausgangspunkt des Denkens, was eine methodische Abgrenzung zu den Bildwissenschaften wie auch zur Bildtheorie ermöglicht. In Anlehnung an die Philosophie von Jean-Luc Nancy schlägt sie ein affirmatives Konzept von Körperlichkeit vor, das auf dem Grenzbegriff der Expeausition - der körperlichen Ausgesetztheit entlang der Haut - beruht. Wie der Selbstakt von Freud zeigt, potenzieren Bilder dieses Ausgesetztsein, da (...) sie nicht nur einen Bildinhalt ausstellen, sondern immer auch den Bildkörper mitaussetzen. (shrink)

In this paper I propose a reading of Plotinus Enneads VI.1-3 [41-43] On the genera of being which regards this treatise as a coherent whole in which Aristotle's Categories is explored in a way that turns it into a decisive contribution to Plotinus' Platonic ontology. In addition, I claim that Porphyry's Isagoge and commentaries on the Categories start by adopting Plotinus' point of view, including his notion of genus, and proceed by explaining its consequences for a more detailed reading of (...) the Categories. After Plotinus' integration of the Categories into the Platonic frame of thought Porphyry saw the possibilities of exploiting the Peripatetic tradition both as a means to support the Platonic interpretation of the Categories and as a source for solutions to traditional questions. His allegiance to a division of being into ten, and his emphasis on semantics rather than ontology can be explained from this orientation. In the light of our investigation the alleged disagreement between Plotinus and Porphyry on the Categories changes its appearance completely. There are differences, but these can be best explained as confirmation and extension of Plotinus' perspective on the Categories and its role in Platonism. (shrink)

This article develops the argument that non-cosmopolitan considerations of justice justify relief of sovereign debt for highly indebted poor states. In particular, the article claims that considerations of national determination warrant some debt-forgiveness in the backdrop of unfair terms of global interaction. In a context of inequality, poor countries cannot generally afford to disregard the costs of ignoring the interests of the wealthiest states. Patterns of unbalanced interaction undermine national self-determination by limiting the poor countries' effective capacity to choose between (...) different policies to achieve development and other worthy goals. In concrete, this article suggests that unequal terms of interaction constrain national self-determination by making of sovereign debt an 'escape mechanism' in the absence of rival alternatives to palliate the effects of underdevelopment and related afflictions, despite the causes of sovereign debt being partly domestic, possibly. Thus, this paper views national self-determination as dependent on the availability of acceptable (non-unbearably burdensome) policy options on the part of states. (shrink)

On Moral Certainty, Justification and Practice presents a view of morality that is inspired by the later Wittgenstein. Hermann explores the ethical implications of Wittgenstein's remarks on doubt, justification, rule-following, certainty and training, offering an alternative to interpretations of Wittgenstein's work that view it as being intrinsically ethical. The book scrutinises cases in which doubt and justification do not make sense, and contrasts certain justificatory demands made by philosophers with the role of moral justification in concrete situations. It offers an (...) account of moral certainty, which is linked to a view of moral competence. Contrary to the views propounded by philosophers who emphasise the importance of moral principles, it is argued that moral agency is first and foremost a matter of having certain capacities. The book takes an anti-intellectualist stance and remains close to concrete practices. The practice-based view of morality it endorses has implications for moral education, intercultural moral dialogue and the prospects for moral agreement, change and progress. (shrink)

To translate is one thing; to say how we do it, is another. The practice is familiar enough, and there are familiar theories of it. But when we try to look more closely, theory tends to obscure rather than explain, and the familiar practice—an ancient practice, without which Western civilisation is unthinkable—appears to be just baffling, its very possibility a mystery.

The aim of the current study was to investigate important pathways of the Environmental Stress Hypothesis concerning the role of peer relations. First, we examined (1) the mediating role of peer problems in the association between the motor performance in daily activities and internalizing problems as a main pathway of the Environmental Stress Hypothesis. Furthermore, we explored the role of (2) children’s popularity as a mediator and (3) best friendship quality as a moderator path of the effect of motor performance (...) on both peer problems and internalizing problems. The non-clinical sample of the present study consisted of 189 children (48.6% females) aged nine to eleven years (Mage = 9.69, SDage = 0.46). Parents reported on their child’s motor performance in daily activities by completing the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire. In addition, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire was used to assess peer problems as well as internalizing problems. The Self Description Questionnaire provided a measure of children’s self-reported popularity. Finally, the Friendship Quality Questionnaire was used to investigate children’s best friendship quality. Results of a structural equation model suggest that peer problems fully mediated the association between the motor performance in daily activities and both popularity and internalizing problems. However, no evidence for the mediating effect of popularity in the association between peer problems and internalizing problems was found. Further, best friendship quality had small but non-significant positive moderating effect on the relation between peer problems and internalizing problems. The mediating role of peer problems highlights the importance of peer relations in the motor performance of daily activities. Possible reasons for the lack of some of the expected mediating and moderating effects as well as practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

We undergo a traumatic experience, such as a life-threatening accident or a brutal attack. We survive a period of relentless stress, perhaps because we are in a war zone and witness or commit atrocities. Raised by parents who are alcoholic or mentally ill, we endure traumatic experiences on a daily basis. Or, we are ignored, neglected, or treated as playthings by narcissistic parents, who themselves were ignored and neglected, and on and on through generations. To survive these experiences, perhaps we (...) dissociate. This can take various forms. In the extreme form, we remove ourselves, psychically speaking, from the situation, perhaps by adopting the role... (shrink)

DieBeratungklinische EthikberatungArzt-Patienten-BeziehungArztArzt-Patientenbeziehung ist durch ein asymmetrisches Verhältnis geprägt, welches sich bereits aus den Umständen seines Zustandekommens ergibt. Der Patient begegnet dem Arzt in einer Situation existentieller NotNot als jemand, der unter Schmerzen und/oder Angst leidet und Hilfe sucht. Er ist dabei angewiesen auf ein vertrauensvolles Verhältnis zu seinem Arzt, der seine Sorgen und Ängste ernstnimmt und durch seine Fachkompetenz die vorliegende KrankheitKrankheit feststellen und heilen oder zumindest lindern kann.