The generality problem is commonly considered to be a critical difficulty for reliabilism. In this paper, we present a dynamical perspective on the problem in the spirit of naturalized epistemology. According to this outlook, it is worth investigating how token belief-forming processes instantiate specific types in the biological agent’s cognitive architecture and background experience, consisting in the process of attractor-guided neural activation. While our discussion of the generality problem assigns “scientific types” to token processes, it represents a unified account in (...) the sense that it incorporates contextual and common sense features emphasized by other authors. (shrink)

The value problem for knowledge is the problem of explaining why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. The problem arises for reliabilism in particular, i.e., the externalist view that knowledge amounts to reliably acquired true belief. Goldman and Olsson argue that knowledge, in this sense, is more valuable than mere true belief due to the higher likelihood of future true beliefs (produced by the same reliable process) in the case of knowledge. They maintain that their solution works (...) given four empirical assumptions, which they claim hold “normally.” However, they do not show that their assumptions are externalistically acceptable; nor do they provide detailed evidence for their normality claim. We address these remaining gaps in Goldman and Olsson’s solution in a constructive spirit. In particular, we suggest an externalist interpretation of the assumptions such that they essentially spell out what it means for a broad range of organisms capable of belief-like representations to be epistemically adapted to their environment. Our investigation also sheds light on the circumstances in which the assumptions fail to hold and knowledge therefore fails to have extra value in Goldman and Olsson’s sense. The upshot is a deeper understanding of their solution as a contribution to naturalized epistemology and a strengthened case for its empirical validity. (shrink)

Mitchell et al. propose that associative learning in humans and other animals requires the formation of propositions by means of conscious and controlled reasoning. This approach neglects important aspects of current thinking in evolutionary biology and neuroscience that support the claim that learning, here exemplified by fear learning, neither needs to be conscious nor controlled.

A fundamental assumption of theories of decision-making is that we detect mismatches between intention and outcome, adjust our behavior in the face of error, and adapt to changing circumstances. Is this always the case? We investigated the relation between intention, choice, and introspection. Participants made choices between presented face pairs on the basis of attractiveness, while we covertly manipulated the relationship between choice and outcome that they experienced. Participants failed to notice conspicuous mismatches between their intended choice and the outcome (...) they were presented with, while nevertheless offering introspectively derived reasons for why they chose the way they did. We call this effect choice blindness. (shrink)

Psychosis is associated with distorted perceptions and deficient bottom-up learning such as classical fear conditioning. This has been interpreted as reflecting imprecise priors in low-level predictive coding systems. Paradoxically, overly strong beliefs, such as overvalued beliefs and delusions, are also present in psychosis-associated states. In line with this, research has suggested that patients with psychosis and associated phenotypes rely more on high-order priors to interpret perceptual input. In this behavioural and fMRI study we studied two types of fear learning, i.e., (...) instructed fear learning mediated by verbal suggestions about fear contingencies and classical fear conditioning mediated by low level associative learning, in delusion proneness—a trait in healthy individuals linked to psychotic disorders. Subjects were shown four faces out of which two were coupled with an aversive stimulation while two were not in a fear conditioning procedure. Before the conditioning, subjects were informed about the contingencies for two of the faces of each type, while no information was given for the two other faces. We could thereby study the effect of both classical fear conditioning and instructed fear learning. Our main outcome variable was evaluative rating of the faces. Simultaneously, fMRI-measurements were performed to study underlying mechanisms. We postulated that instructed fear learning, measured with evaluative ratings, is stronger in psychosis-related phenotypes, in contrast to classical fear conditioning that has repeatedly been shown to be weaker in these groups. In line with our hypothesis, we observed significantly larger instructed fear learning on a behavioural level in delusion-prone individuals compared to non-delusion-prone subjects. Instructed fear learning was associated with a bilateral activation of lateral orbitofrontal cortex that did not differ significantly between groups. However, delusion-prone subjects showed a stronger functional connectivity between right lateral orbitofrontal cortex and regions processing fear and pain. Our results suggest that psychosis-related states are associated with a strong instructed fear learning in addition to previously reported weak classical fear conditioning. Given the similarity between nocebo paradigms and instructed fear learning, our results also have an impact on understanding why nocebo effects differ between individuals. (shrink)

We propose that moral behaviour of artificial agents could be intrinsically grounded in their own sensory-motor experiences. Such an ability depends critically on seven types of competencies. First, intrinsic morality should be grounded in the internal values of the robot arising from its physiology and embodiment. Second, the moral principles of robots should develop through their interactions with the environment and with other agents. Third, we claim that the dynamics of moral emotions closely follows that of other non-social emotions used (...) in valuation and decision making. Fourth, we explain how moral emotions can be learned from the observation of others. Fifth, we argue that to assess social interaction, a robot should be able to learn about and understand responsibility and causation. Sixth, we explain how mechanisms that can learn the consequences of actions are necessary for a robot to make moral decisions. Seventh, we describe how the moral evaluation mechanisms outlined can be extended to situations where a robot should understand the goals of others. Finally, we argue that these competencies lay the foundation for robots that can feel guilt, shame and pride, that have compassion and that know how to assign responsibility and blame. (shrink)

This article brings together two different topics: reflective equilibrium (RE) and belief revision theory (BRT). RE is a popular method of justification in many areas of philosophy, it involves a process of mutual adjustments striving for a state of coherence, but it lacks formally rigorous elaborations and faces severe criticism. To elucidate core elements of RE and provide a solid basis to address objections, a formal model of RE within BRT is presented. A fruitful starting point to the formalization of (...) RE is Olsson’s coherentist interpretation of semi-revision, but it does not come with a comparative notion of stability. This paper develops an account of comparative stability in an RE setting for belief changing operations. The operations are useful to characterize RE states as well as processes, and they are shown to satisfy postulates of rational belief change. (shrink)

The legacy of Nisbett and Wilson’s classic article, Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes , is mixed. It is perhaps the most cited article in the recent history of consciousness studies, yet no empirical research program currently exists that continues the work presented in the article. To remedy this, we have introduced an experimental paradigm we call choice blindness [Johansson, P., Hall, L., Sikström, S., & Olsson, A. . Failure to detect mismatches between intention (...) and outcome in a simple decision task. Science, 310, 116–119.]. In the choice blindness paradigm participants fail to notice mismatches between their intended choice and the outcome they are presented with, while nevertheless offering introspectively derived reasons for why they chose the way they did. In this article, we use word-frequency and latent semantic analysis to investigate a corpus of introspective reports collected within the choice blindness paradigm. We contrast the introspective reasons given in non-manipulated vs. manipulated trials, but find very few differences between these two groups of reports. (shrink)

The standard way of representing an epistemic state in formal philosophy is in terms of a set of sentences, corresponding to the agent’s beliefs, and an ordering of those sentences, reflecting how well entrenched they are in the agent’s epistemic state. We argue that this wide-spread representational view – a view that we identify as a “Quinean dogma” – is incapable of making certain crucial distinctions. We propose, as a remedy, that any adequate representation of epistemic states must also include (...) the agent’s research agenda, i.e., the list of question that are open or closed at any given point in time. If the argument of the paper is sound, a person’s questions and practical interests, on the one hand, and her beliefs and theoretical values, on the other, are more tightly interwoven than has previously been assumed to be the case in formal epistemology. (shrink)

In a seminal book, Alvin I. Goldman outlines a theory for how to evaluate social practices with respect to their “veritistic value”, i.e., their tendency to promote the acquisition of true beliefs in society. In the same work, Goldman raises a number of serious worries for his account. Two of them concern the possibility of determining the veritistic value of a practice in a concrete case because we often don't know what beliefs are actually true, and even if we did, (...) the task of determining the veritistic value would be computationally extremely difficult. Neither problem is specific to Goldman's theory and both can be expected to arise for just about any account of veritistic value. It is argued here that the first problem does not pose a serious threat to large classes of interesting practices. The bulk of the paper is devoted to the computational problem, which, it is submitted, can be addressed in promising terms by means of computer simulation. In an attempt to add vividness to this proposal, an up-and-running simulation environment is presented and put to some preliminary tests. (shrink)

Gunnar Olsson's tale follows an explorer from the oldest creation epics extant to the power struggles of today, an attempt to codify the taken-for-granted, a struggle with the invisible powers that make us so obedient and so predictable.

Returning to the origins of education, Becoming Pedagogue explores its role in today's society by reuniting philosophy with pedagogy. It investigates the aesthetics, ethics and politics of childhood, education and what a teacher really does, enabling educators to define and perform their profession as per its historical and intellectual roots. Reflecting on the practice, science and knowledge-tradition of pedagogy as well as abstract and formalist discourse at all levels, Olsson's work evokes real and free aspects of educational experiences and (...) events. Through a close reading of French philosopher Henri Bergson's major works, historical and contemporary pedagogical resources as well as the pedagogy developed in the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia, Italy, it develops a critical-cum-creative methodology that both analyses the present educational situation as well as creates new pedagogical alternatives. Using brand new perspectives as well as practical examples of what teachers do, Becoming Pedagogue will provide students, educators and researchers tools for critiquing simplified ideas of what a teacher is as well as giving them inspiration to experiment with alternative ways of teaching. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Frankfurt's Meno Challenge Reliabilist Solutions Frankfurt's Puzzle about Bullshit A Social Epistemology Perspective References.

This book theorizes subversive action, a neglected mechanism in the new institutionalism literature. Subversive action is political in nature, secretly undermining some institutions to open up alternative ideas or to secure existing institutions by secretly undermining adversaries. An example is a politician who promises change in public, but does something else behind the scenes to preserve the status quo. The book addresses the nature and meaning of subversive action and the contexts that give rise to it, as well as how (...) it can work as an important mechanism behind institutional change and continuity. The book will interest students and scholars of public policy, public administration and political science. (shrink)

Online controlled experiments, also known as A/B tests, have become ubiquitous. While many practical challenges in running experiments at scale have been thoroughly discussed, the ethical dimension of A/B testing has been neglected. This article fills this gap in the literature by introducing a new, soft ethics and governance framework that explicitly recognizes how the rise of an experimentation culture in industry settings brings not only unprecedented opportunities to businesses but also significant responsibilities. More precisely, the article (a) introduces a (...) set of principles to encourage ethical and responsible experimentation to protect users, customers, and society; (b) argues that ensuring compliance with the proposed principles is a complex challenge unlikely to be addressed by resorting to a one-solution response; (c) discusses the relevance and effectiveness of several mechanisms and policies in educating, governing, and incentivizing companies conducting online controlled experiments; and (d) offers a list of prompting questions specifically designed to help and empower practitioners by stimulating specific ethical deliberations and facilitating coordination among different groups of stakeholders. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel proof of the conservativity of the intuitionistic theory of strictly positive fixpoints, $$\widehat{{\textrm{ID}}}{}_{1}^{{\textrm{i}}}{}$$ ID ^ 1 i, over Heyting arithmetic ($${\textrm{HA}}$$ HA ), originally proved in full generality by Arai (Ann Pure Appl Log 162:807–815, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apal.2011.03.002). The proof embeds $$\widehat{{\textrm{ID}}}{}_{1}^{{\textrm{i}}}{}$$ ID ^ 1 i into the corresponding theory over Beeson’s logic of partial terms and then uses two consecutive interpretations, a realizability interpretation of this theory into the subtheory generated by almost negative fixpoints, and (...) a direct interpretation into Heyting arithmetic with partial terms using a hierarchy of satisfaction predicates for almost negative formulae. It concludes by applying van den Berg and van Slooten’s result (Indag Math 29:260–275, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indag.2017.07.009) that Heyting arithmetic with partial terms plus the schema of self realizability for arithmetic formulae is conservative over $${\textrm{HA}}$$ HA. (shrink)

Book Review of Luc Bovens and Stephan Hartmann *Bayesian Epistemology* by Erik J. Olsson.

In this paper we examine C. I. Lewis's view on the roleof coherence – what he calls ''congruence'' – in thejustification of beliefs based on memory ortestimony. Lewis has two main theses on the subject. His negativethesis states that coherence of independent items ofevidence has no impact on the probability of a conclusionunless each item has some credibility of its own. Thepositive thesis says, roughly speaking, that coherenceof independently obtained items of evidence – such asconverging memories or testimonies – raises (...) the probabilityof a conclusion to the extent sufficient for epistemicjustification, or, to use Lewis's expression, ''rationaland practical reliance''.It turns out that, while thenegative thesis is essentially correct, astrong positive connection between congruence andprobability – a connection of the kind Lewis ultimatelyneeds in his validation of memory – is contingent on thePrinciple of Indifference. In the final section we assess therepercussions of the latter fact for Lewis's theory in particularand for coherence justification in general. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose a regularity theory of causation. The theory aims to be reductive and to align with our pre‐theoretic understanding of the causal relation. We show that our theory can account for a wide range of causal scenarios, including isomorphic scenarios, omissions, and scenarios which suggest that causation is not transitive.

The impact of large digital corporations on our freedom is often lamented but rarely investigated systematically. This paper aims to fill this desideratum by focusing on the power of social media corporations and the freedom of their users. In order to analyze this relationship, I distinguish two forms of freedom and two corresponding forms of power. Social media corporations extend their users’ freedom of choice by providing many new options. This provision, however, comes with the domination by these corporations because (...) it is based on their power of uncontrolled interference. Users could escape this domination through exit. One reason why they do not choose this option is that they would lose the benefits associated with the network effects provided by social media services. A second reason is that the power of social media corporations runs so deep that they are able to manipulate the autonomous decision-making processes of their users. Users are provided with many new avenues for authentic self-presentation on social media. By using them, however, users need to conform to a web interface that is designed by corporations to undermine self-control. Through these two mechanisms, corporations are able to promote an interest in users to present themselves on their platforms. Insofar as this works, they secure the users’ compliance to their domination through subjectivation. This double conjunction of choice and domination, on the one hand, and autonomy and subjectivation, on the other, makes the case that the very power of corporate social media stems from their intrinsic connection to genuine practices of freedom. (shrink)

Dieses Buch versammelt einige der führenden Köpfe heutiger pragmatischer Philosophie zu einem konstruktiven Gespräch über die Zukunft des Pragmatismus. Robert B. Brandom, dessen Theorie der Bedeutung im Mittelpunkt mehrerer Beiträge des Bandes steht, hat das Einleitungskapitel geschrieben. Sämtliche zentrale Problemstellungen der pragmatischen Tradition werden aus teilweise sehr unterschiedlichen Perspektiven eingehend beleuchtet. Neben den Artikeln von Brandom und den Herausgebern, André Fuhrmann und Erik J. Olsson, enthält das Buch Originalbeiträge von Michael Esfeld, Wolfram Hinzen, Friedrich Kambartel, Isaac Levi, Ulrich Metschl, (...) Cheryl Misak, Jaroslav Peregrin, Sven Rosenkranz, Hans Rott und Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer. (shrink)

We aim to devise a Ramsey test analysis of actual causation. Our method is to define a strengthened Ramsey test for causal models. Unlike the accounts of Halpern and Pearl ([2005]) and Halpern ([2015]), the resulting analysis deals satisfactorily with both over- determination and conjunctive scenarios.

Sartre’s account of the emotions presupposes a conception of human nature that is never fully articulated. The paper aims to render such conception explicit and to argue that frustration occupies a foundational place in Sartre’s picture of affective existence.

In this paper, we engage with the question of the normative content of the resilience concept. The issues are approached in two consecutive steps. First, we proceed from a narrow construal of the resilience concept – as the ability of a system to absorb a disturbance – and show that under an analysis of normative concepts as evaluative concepts resilience comes out as descriptive. In the second part of the paper, we argue that (1) for systems of interest (primarily social (...) systems or system with a social component) we seem to have options with respect to how they are described and (2) that this matters for what is to be taken as a sign of resilience as opposed to a sign of the lack of resilience for such systems. We discuss the implications of this for how the concept should be applied in practice and suggest that users of the resilience concept face a choice between versions of the concept that are either ontologically or normatively charged. (shrink)

Human-centered explainable AI (HCXAI) advocates for the integration of social aspects into AI explanations. Central to the HCXAI discourse is the Social Transparency (ST) framework, which aims to make the socio-organizational context of AI systems accessible to their users. In this work, we suggest extending the ST framework to address the risks of social misattributions in Large Language Models (LLMs), particularly in sensitive areas like mental health. In fact LLMs, which are remarkably capable of simulating roles and personas, may lead (...) to mismatches between designers' intentions and users' perceptions of social attributes, risking to promote emotional manipulation and dangerous behaviors, cases of epistemic injustice, and unwarranted trust. To address these issues, we propose enhancing the ST framework with a fifth 'W-question' to clarify the specific social attributions assigned to LLMs by its designers and users. This addition aims to bridge the gap between LLM capabilities and user perceptions, promoting the ethically responsible development and use of LLM-based technology. (shrink)

Aggregating snippets from the semantic memories of many individuals may not yield a good map of an individual’s semantic memory. The authors analyze the structure of semantic networks that they sampled from individuals through a new snowball sampling paradigm during approximately 6 weeks of 1-hr daily sessions. The semantic networks of individuals have a small-world structure with short distances between words and high clustering. The distribution of links follows a power law truncated by an exponential cutoff, meaning that most words (...) are poorly connected and a minority of words has a high, although bounded, number of connections. Existing aggregate networks mirror the individual link distributions, and so they are not scale-free, as has been previously assumed; still, there are properties of individual structure that the aggregate networks do not reflect. A simulation of the new sampling process suggests that it can uncover the true structure of an individual’s semantic memory. (shrink)

We prove that four theses commonly associated with coherentism are incompatible with the representation of a belief state as a logically closed set of sentences. The result is applied to the conventional coherence interpretation of the AGM theory of belief revision, which appears not to be tenable. Our argument also counts against the coherentistic acceptability of a certain form of propositional holism. We argue that the problems arise as an effect of ignoring the distinction between derived and non-derived beliefs, and (...) we suggest that the kind of coherence relevant to epistemic justification is the coherence of non-derived beliefs. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyse actual causation in terms of production. The latter concept is made precise by a strengthened Ramsey Test semantics of conditionals: \ iff, after suspending judgement about A and C, C is believed in the course of assuming A. This test allows us to verify or falsify that an event brings about another event. Complementing the concept of production by a weak condition of difference-making gives rise to a full-fledged analysis of causation.

Research programs regularly compete to achieve the same goal, such as the discovery of the structure of DNA or the construction of a TEA laser. The more the competing programs share information, the faster the goal is likely to be reached, to society’s benefit. But the “priority rule”-the scientific norm according to which the first program to reach the goal in question must receive all the credit for the achievement-provides a powerful disincentive for programs to share information. How, then, is (...) the clash between social and individual interest resolved in scientific practice? This chapter investigates what Robert Merton called science’s “communist” norm, which mandates universal sharing of knowledge, and uses mathematical models of discovery to argue that a communist regime may be on the whole advantageous and fair to all parties, and so might be implemented by a social contract that all scientists would be willing to sign. (shrink)

Der Band bietet einen systematischen Überblick über das Verhältnis von Literatur und Philosophie. Philosophische, literarische und literaturwissenschaftliche Ansätze kommen gleichberechtigt zu Wort. Die Beiträge loten die Bedeutung von Literatur aus und präsentieren gattungstheoretische Überlegungen zu literarischen Formen der Philosophie. Studien über philosophierende Literatur und philosophische Reflexionen über Literatur beschließen den Band.

It is tempting to think that, if a person's beliefs are coherent, they are also likely to be true. This truth conduciveness claim is the cornerstone of the popular coherence theory of knowledge and justification. Erik Olsson's new book is the most extensive and detailed study of coherence and probable truth to date. Setting new standards of precision and clarity, Olsson argues that the value of coherence has been widely overestimated. Provocative and readable, Against Coherence will make stimulating (...) reading for epistemologists and anyone with a serious interest in truth. (shrink)