This investigation examined how people’s beliefs about the functionality of emotion shape their emotional response and regulatory strategies when encountering distressing events. In Study 1, we present data supporting the reliability and validity of an 8-item instrument, the Help and Hinder Theories about Emotion Measure (HHTEM), designed to assess an individual’s beliefs about the functionality of emotion. Participants who more strongly endorsed a Help Theory reported greater wellbeing, emotional acceptance, and use of reappraisal to regulate emotion. Participants who more (...) strongly endorsed a Hinder Theory reported less wellbeing and more expressive suppression and substance use. In Study 2, we demonstrate that encouraging participants to view emotion as helpful affected their physiological and regulatory response to a distressing event. Participants in the Help Theory condition showed greater physiological reactivity (SCL) during a distressing film than control participants but were more accepting of their emotional response. Shortly after the film, SCL decreased for participants in the Help Theory condition. Compared to control participants, they engaged in less suppression and reported less lingering effect of the film on their mood. Together, these studies suggest that people’s theories about the functionality of emotion influence their reactivity, the strategies they adopt to regulate emotion, and their ability to rebound after distressing events. (shrink)

The android Data from Star Trek admired human emotion whereas Spock viewed emotion as irrational and maladaptive. The theory that emotions fulfil adaptive functions is widely accepted in academic psychology but little is known about laypeople’s theories. The present study assessed the extent to which laypeople share Data’s view of emotion as helpful or Spock’s view of emotion as a hindrance. We also assessed how help and hinder theory endorsement were related to reasoning, emotion regulation, and well-being. Undergraduates completed (...) a stressful timed reasoning task and questionnaires that assessed their theories of emotion, emotion regulation strategies, happiness, and social support. Overall, participants viewed emotion more as a help than a hindrance. The more they endorsed the view that emotion helps, the better their reasoning scores. Endorsing a help theory also predicted the use of reappraisal which, in turn, predicted greater happiness and social support. In contrast, endorsing the view that emotion hinders was associated with emotion suppression and less social support. Thus, people’s theories about the functionality of emotion may have important implications for their reasoning and emotional well-being. (shrink)

Bandersnatch is a unique piece of television. Like the eponymous choose your own adventure book at the center of its winding narrative, the episode lets the viewer actively make choices that shape the direction of the story. In this same spirit, we present this chapter in an equally novel way: as a collection of miniature essays on a dozen or so philosophical topics, loosely bound together. Just as in the episode, the reader's choices will determine the philosophical path she takes (...) through the chapter. The authors engage primarily with questions about freedom: Do we have free will? Is there any relationship between free will and moral responsibility? Can artistic expression provide us with socio‐political freedom? How does technology restrict freedom? In addition, we explore existential concerns about choice, consider the possibility of time travel and multiple universes, and ethically take viewers to task for decisions they made while watching the episode. (shrink)

This introduction to the review symposium on Ryan Patrick Hanley’s works on the relatively neglected early modern philosopher François Fénelon provides a brief overview of the symposium itself before turning to Hanley’s treatment of Fénelon’s work on the intersection of politics and religion, culminating in a comparison of Fénelon with his most celebrated admirer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The article sketches how both francophone thinkers employ conceptions of divine justice as a measure to counter the dangers of amour-propre, contrasting Fénelon’s thick theology (...) with Rousseau’s thin theology. (shrink)

Although it originated in theological debates, the general will ultimately became one of the most celebrated and denigrated concepts emerging from early modern political thought. Jean-Jacques Rousseau made it the central element of his political theory, and it took on a life of its own during the French Revolution, before being subjected to generations of embrace or opprobrium. James Farr and David Lay Williams have collected for the first time a set of essays that track the evolving history of the (...) general will from its origins to recent times. The General Will: The Evolution of a Concept discusses the general will's theological, political, formal, and substantive dimensions with a careful eye toward the concept's virtues and limitations as understood by its expositors and critics, among them Arnauld, Pascal, Malebranche, Leibniz, Locke, Spinoza, Montesquieu, Kant, Constant, Tocqueville, Adam Smith and John Rawls. (shrink)

Many consumers implicitly associate sustainability with lower product strength. This so-called ethical = less strong intuition (ELSI) poses a major threat for the success of sustainable products. This article explores this pervasive lay theory and examines whether it is a key barrier for sustainable consumption patterns. Even more importantly, little is known about the underlying mechanisms that might operate differently at the implicit and explicit levels of the consumer’s decision-making. To fill this gap, three studies examine how the implicit judgments (...) that consumers activate automatically shape their consumption behaviors, in concert with their more controlled explicit beliefs about sustainable products. The Main Study investigates the ELSI’s imprint on actual shopping patterns and disentangles the implicit and explicit mechanisms of the lay theory. This paper also asks how this negative influence can be attenuated by examining whether the consumer’s interest in sustainable consumption reduces reliance on the ELSI. Two follow-up studies confirm the robustness from different methodological and practical perspectives. Implications for companies and policy makers are derived. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Justice and the General Will:Affirming Rousseau's Ancient OrientationDavid Lay WilliamsThere is much confusion about how to characterize the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His thought has at various times been related to such dissimilar thinkers as Plato and Hobbes. From Plato he is said to have acquired his affinities for community and civic virtue. And one does not have to look too hard to find his praise for the great (...) sage of the Academy: "Plato only purified the heart of man."1 He was often eager to affiliate his ideas with those of antiquity. He yearned for modern society to rekindle the flames of a once-great civilization. "[W]hat keeps us [the moderns] from being men like them [the ancients]? Our prejudices, our base philosophy, and the passions of petty self-interest, concentrated together with egoism in all hearts by inept institutions in which genius never had any share."2 Despite his obvious admiration for the perceived greater ideas of the past, however, Rousseau also expressed some skepticism. James Miller has suggested that he held Plato's theory of the Forms to be unsustainable.3 Allan Bloom has likewise argued that Rousseau's "teaching is not... a revival of those of Plato.... If he admires the practice of antiquity, he does not accept the theory."4This has led many to argue that Rousseau is best understood as student of Thomas Hobbes. Roger D. Masters, for example, has suggested that "Rousseau's principles of political right can... be best described as a reformulation [End Page 383] of Hobbes' conception of the social contract."5 Arthur Melzer also argues, "The purpose of the doctrine Rousseau elaborates in the Social Contract is essentially the same [as Hobbes']."6 This view is argued on the grounds that the General Will is a positive or arbitrary standard, functioning as the primary principle of Rousseau's constructive political program. Yet the vision of Rousseau as a Hobbesian or modernist also merits skepticism. While he employs a social contract, as does Hobbes, he explicitly rejects traditional forms of positivism. "What is good and conformable to order is so by the nature of things and independently of human conventions."7 Whatever one might say about such passages, it at least raises the possibility that Rousseau is no modernist in the Straussian sense of defining Justice as human agreement.Much of what contributes to the conflicting interpretations of Rousseau can be attributed to different understandings of the relative priority and relationship of two central concepts in his writings. One of these is the well-discussed notion of the General Will. The dominant fashion is to read the General Will as a conventional substitute for natural law or transcendent Ideas. According to this reading, the General Will is grounded on nothing more than consent and functions as the first principle of all legitimate political societies. The other term central to Rousseau's program is the far less discussed but equally important concept of Justice. Little has been written on his understanding of Justice and, for that matter, he himself rarely discussed it explicitly. But it, too, could also be considered a primary principle. While it would be foolish to dismiss the importance of the General Will to Rousseau, it would be equally problematic to explore it independently of his Idea of Justice. The question in understanding his work is which of these two principles—the General Will or Justice—is primary or fundamental. If it is the General Will, a case can be made that the Straussians are right, and Rousseau is a positivist. If Justice is prior, on the other hand, then there is reason to believe that he was something much different.I argue that the positivist reading of Rousseau is flawed. Indeed, my thesis is that he is among the greatest and most thorough Platonists of the modern era.8 His rejection of Hobbes is not merely rhetorical. In fact, it represents the [End Page 384] true impetus of his social contract. This contract is designed explicitly to counter Hobbesian positivism. In the same way that Plato responds to Protagoras' positivism with his theory of the Forms, Rousseau responds to Hobbes... (shrink)

ABSTRACT Terrorism is perhaps the greatest challenge of the contemporary age. Of all the canonical figures in political theory, Thomas Hobbes is the most likely candidate to offer genuine insight into this problem. Yet although his analysis of the state of nature is immediately relevant to the diagnosis of this problem, his metaphysics cannot sustain his politics. His aspiration to “immutable” natural laws grounded in the universal motivation of the fear of death crumble when this fear is no longer universal. (...) When terrorists are inspired by a religious ideology that makes them willing to die for their beliefs—and when they benefit from other asymmetries with the civilian populations against which they are arrayed—Hobbes the theorist of war and international relations becomes less relevant than Hobbes the prescriber of “rational” (fearfully pacific) human nature. (shrink)

In the founding documents of this country one finds appeals both to the sovereignty of the people and to abstract notions of rights, "justice," and "the common good". These two ideas are evoked almost as if there were no sense on behalf of the framers that these two ideas simultaneously held create a philosophic tension. Yet as history informs us, they are often contradictory in content. This theme was explored by Rousseau in his distinction of the general will versus the (...) will of all. For Rousseau, the answer to political legitimacy was simple: it was found in the general will, the embodiment of transcendent political ideas. ;Rousseau's choice is one which mirrors that of the American founders. And in doing so they have taken a necessary step in law and state formation: the appeal to Platonism. But, ironically, this appeal does not mean that the popular will has no place in the law. In fact, a careful reading of Plato will render precisely the opposite conclusion: that a sound state built upon transcendent ideas must take into account a number of important empirical considerations, perhaps most significant among these being the will of the people. These ideas are not, however, the determinate Forms from the Phaedo, but rather the indeterminate concepts which guide the Athenian Stranger in his construction of the constitution of Magnesia in the Laws. Given this ontological characteristic of the Forms, the author of a state must have a broad understanding of empirical circumstances including human nature, while serving the demands of the universal ideas. In this light, one must realize that the law will be of no service to its highest aspirations unless it can be written in a manner that the people will act in accordance with it But the lawgiver also relies on this body for the articulation of the higher ideas. Thus the people are at once an obstacle to and a conduit of a higher law. To the extent, however, that democratic theory fails to confront its foundations in such a manner, it becomes mired in confusion. (shrink)

Every day, Victoria Skillane wakes up bewildered. She has no idea where she is, but nevertheless has to run for her life from masked assailants while zombielike onlookers refuse to intervene. We later learn that she's the centerpiece of ‘White Bear Justice Park.’ The question is, what about this could be called just? In this chapter, we look to different theories of punishment in order to discern whether or not Victoria's punishment is justified. Does she deserve it? Does her (...) sentence deter people? Beyond these questions, we confront the most unsettling question raised by this episode of Black Mirror: why do people enjoy watching her suffer so much? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.2 (2004) 224-225 [Access article in PDF] Ross Harrison. Hobbes, Locke, and Confusion's Masterpiece: An Examination of Seventeenth-Century Political Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. v + 281. Cloth, $65.00. Paper, $23.00. The title of Ross Harrison's book is taken from Macduff's line in Macbeth, "[c]onfusion now have made his masterpiece," in reference to the discovery of a murdered king. Regicide (...) was a particularly unsettling crime in the day of Shakespeare, as Harrison reminds us, since kings were often associated with divinity (2). And perhaps it was their obvious and fragile mortality, as witnessed by the killing of King Charles I, that served to further unsettle what had previously been taken for granted in the modern world—the very foundations of the state. Today, Jürgen Habermas informs us from the perspective of critical theory that we live in a "postmetaphysical condition," where we can no longer count on the apparatus of Christian natural law or Platonic Ideas to justify the state and its laws. Practically, the difficulty in Iraq of bringing together the various religious perspectives of Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Christians, and others suggests that different religions or even varying interpretations of the same religion provide formidable barriers to the foundation of political systems. How do we bring people of different worldviews and perspectives together into one state? The great virtue of Harrison's book is the reminder that this is not a new problem. Rather, it resides at the core of the greatest challenges for political philosophy in any age. This challenge inspires what Harrison calls "some of the greatest and most important political philosophy ever written" (1).Thomas Hobbes is the first to receive extensive attention. Harrison provides a careful step-by-step analysis of Hobbes's reasoning in Leviathan. His affection for Hobbes is thinly veiled, as he parenthetically refers to Leviathan as "the greatest work of the greatest political philosopher" (62). Much of his account is standard, as he skillfully walks the reader from Hobbes's fascination with science to the sweeping authority of the sovereign. What is particularly worthy of note is his attention to the matter of foundations in Hobbes. Here his characterization reminds us of the eternality of Hobbes's central problem: "... how in a sceptical age to make statements of human reason that can depend on something fixed, or generally agreed" (64). Having found God superfluous to the question, according to Harrison, Hobbes ultimately employs prudence in relation to self-interest to be this fixed object. Since prudence—particularly its response to threats of violence—is the one element shared by all peoples, regardless of their religious or moral commitments, it makes the most sturdy foundation of political reasoning.The second object of extended attention is John Locke. And as was the case with his treatment of Hobbes, Harrison again looks to the foundations. As most readers of Locke are aware, the law of nature plays a central role in his thought, and if one is to get to the foundations of his politics, then one must unravel its mysteries. Locke makes solving these mysteries difficult for readers by denying the existence of innate ideas in the Essay. Locke makes his own task of grounding his theory difficult by doing just the same—denying the existence of innate ideas. Grounding natural law is made even more troublesome by his apparent appeals to these very same innate ideas on two occasions in the Second Treatise (§11, §136). It is perhaps in his own confusion that, according to Harrison, he "falls back, [End Page 224] after all, on revelation" (180). This is particularly unsatisfactory for Harrison, since revelation is characterized by the indeterminacy that led to the political conflict between Protestants and Catholics in modern England and eventually to the works of Hobbes and Locke in the first place.Shorter chapters are devoted to Grotius, Pufendorf, and the less-celebrated sixteenth-century figure, John Ponet. Ponet is found to appeal... (shrink)

Empirical evidence indicates that conscious states, distinguished by the presence of phenomenal qualities, are closely linked to synchronized neural activity patterns whose dynamical characteristics can be attributed to self-organized criticality and phase transitions. These findings imply that insight into the mechanism by which the brain controls phase transitions will provide a deeper understanding of the fundamental mechanism by which the brain manages to transcend the threshold of consciousness. This article aims to show that the initiation of phase transitions and the (...) formation of synchronized activity patterns is due to the coupling of the brain to the zero-point field (ZPF), which plays a central role in quantum electrodynamics (QED). The ZPF stands for the presence of ubiquitous vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field, represented by a spectrum of normal modes. With reference to QED-based model calculations, the details of the coupling mechanism are revealed, suggesting that critical brain dynamics is governed by the resonant interaction of the ZPF with the most abundant neurotransmitter glutamate. The pyramidal neurons in the cortical microcolumns turn out to be ideally suited to control this interaction. A direct consequence of resonant glutamate-ZPF coupling is the amplification of specific ZPF modes, which leads us to conclude that the ZPF is the key to the understanding of consciousness and that the distinctive feature of neurophysiological processes associated with conscious experience consists in modulating the ZPF. Postulating that the ZPF is an inherently sentient field and assuming that the spectrum of phenomenal qualities is represented by the normal modes of the ZPF, the significance of resonant glutamate-ZPF interaction for the formation of conscious states becomes apparent in that the amplification of specific ZPF modes is inextricably linked with the excitation of specific phenomenal qualities. This theory of consciousness, according to which phenomenal states arise through resonant amplification of zero-point modes, is given the acronym TRAZE. An experimental setup is specified that can be used to test a corollary of the theory, namely, the prediction that normally occurring conscious perceptions are absent under experimental conditions in which resonant glutamate-ZPF coupling is disrupted. (shrink)

-/- Policy regulations of ethically controversial genetic technologies should, on the one hand, be based on ethical principles. On the other hand, they should be socially acceptable to ensure implementation. In addition, they should align with ethical theory. Yet to date we lack a reliable and valid scale to measure the relevant ethical judgements in laypeople. We target this lacuna. -/- We developed a scale based on ethical principles to elicit lay judgments: the Genetic Technologies Questionnaire (GTQ). In two pilot (...) studies and a pre-registered main study, we validated the scale in a representative sample of the US population. -/- The final version of the scale contains 20 items but remains highly reliable even when reduced to five. It also predicts behaviour; for example, ethical judgments as measured by the GTQ predicted hypothetical donations and grocery shopping. In addition, the GTQ may be of interest to policymakers and ethicists because it reveals coherent and ethically justified judgments in laypeople. For instance, the GTQ indicates that ethical judgments are sensitive to possible benefits and harms (in line with utilitarian ethics), but also to ethical principles such as the value of consent-autonomy. -/- In conclusion, the GTQ can be recommended for research in both experimental psychology and applied ethics, as well as a tool for ethically and empirically informed policymaking. (shrink)

Intuitively, there is a difference between knowledge and mere belief. Contemporary philosophical work on the nature of this difference has focused on scenarios known as “Gettier cases.” Designed as counterexamples to the classical theory that knowledge is justified true belief, these cases feature agents who arrive at true beliefs in ways which seem reasonable or justified, while nevertheless seeming to lack knowledge. Prior empirical investigation of these cases has raised questions about whether lay people generally share philosophers’ intuitions about these (...) cases, or whether lay intuitions vary depending on individual factors (e.g. ethnicity) or factors related to specific types of Gettier cases (e.g. cases that include apparent evidence). We report an experiment on lay attributions of knowledge and justification for a wide range of Gettier Cases and for a related class of controversial cases known as Skeptical Pressure cases, which are also thought by philosophers to elicit intuitive denials of knowledge. Although participants rated true beliefs in Gettier and Skeptical Pressure cases as being justified, they were significantly less likely to attribute knowledge for these cases than for matched true belief cases. This pattern of response was consistent across different variations of Gettier cases and did not vary by ethnicity or gender, although attributions of justification were found to be positively related to measures of empathy. These findings therefore suggest that across demographic groups, laypeople share similar epistemic concepts with philosophers, recognizing a difference between knowledge and justified true belief. (shrink)

In spite of extensive research on theory of mind, lay theories about the unconscious have scarcely been investigated. Three questionnaire studies totaling 689 participants, examined to what extent they thought that a range of psychological processes could be unconscious. It was found that people are less willing to countenance unconscious processes in themselves than in others, regardless of the time period considered – present, past or future. This is especially true when specific experience-like situations are envisioned, as opposed to (...) considering the question in abstract or generic terms. In addition, the notion of unconscious psychological processes is resisted for certain domains in particular: intending, sensing, believing, and thinking. We interpret this pattern by positing the existence of two conceptions about the unconscious that are differentially applied according to circumstances: one originating in prevalent social representations about the unconscious, the other based on self-model of the person as an intentional actor. (shrink)

Scientific cognition is a hard-won achievement, both from a historical point of view and a developmental point of view. Here, I review seven facets of lay cognition that run counter to, and often impede, scientific cognition: incompatible folk theories, missing ontologies, tolerance for shallow explanations, tolerance for contradictory explanations, privileging explanation over empirical data, privileging testimony over empirical data, and misconceiving the nature of science itself. Most of these facets have been investigated independent of the others, and I propose (...) directions for future research that might integrate them so as to explore potential commonalities among seemingly disparate obstacles to science learning, as well as potential strategies for bridging lay cognition and scientific cognition in the context of science education. (shrink)

Several authors have made claims about the compatibility between the Free Energy Principle and theories of autopoiesis and enaction. Many see these theories as natural partners or as making similar statements about the nature of biological and cognitive systems. We critically examine these claims and identify a series of misreadings and misinterpretations of key enactive concepts. In particular, we notice a tendency to disregard the operational definition of autopoiesis and the distinction between a system’s structure and its organization. (...) Other misreadings concern the conflation of processes of self-distinction in operationally closed systems and Markov blankets. Deeper theoretical tensions underlie some of these misinterpretations. FEP assumes systems that reach a non-equilibrium steady state and are enveloped by a Markov blanket. We argue that these assumptions contradict the historicity of sense-making that is explicit in the enactive approach. Enactive concepts such as adaptivity and agency are defined in terms of the modulation of parameters and constraints of the agent-environment coupling, which entail the possibility of changes in variable and parameter sets, constraints, and in the dynamical laws affecting the system. This allows enaction to address the path-dependent diversity of human bodies and minds. We argue that these ideas are incompatible with the time invariance of non-equilibrium steady states assumed by the FEP. In addition, the enactive perspective foregrounds the enabling and constitutive roles played by the world in sense-making, agency, development. We argue that this view of transactional and constitutive relations between organisms and environments is a challenge to the FEP. Once we move beyond superficial similarities, identify misreadings, and examine the theoretical commitments of the two approaches, we reach the conclusion that far from being easily integrated, the FEP, as it stands formulated today, is in tension with the theories of autopoiesis and enaction. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide a starting point for a non-representational approach to language. It will do so by undoing some of the reifying tendencies that are at the heart of the ontology of scientific psychology. Although non-representational theories are beginning to emerge, they remain committed to giving explanations in terms of ontological structures that are independent of human activity. If they maintain this commitment it is unlikely that they will displace representationalism in domains such as language. By following (...) some of Wittgenstein’s remarks on language, I explain the phenomenon of reification by carefully considering the formative, situational flow of language—thus without invoking representations. In this way, the paper sketches a direction of approach for a non-representational theory of language, undercutting the most important assumptions that justify an explanatory ontology devoid of human activity. (shrink)

Hilary Putnam’s influential analysis of the ‘division of linguistic labour’ has a striking application in the area of doctor–patient interaction: patients typically think of themselves as consumers of technical medical terms in the sense that they normally defer to health professionals’ explanations of meaning. It is at the same time well documented that patients tend to think they are entitled to understand lay health terms like ‘sickness’ and ‘illness’ in ways that do not necessarily correspond to health professionals’ understanding. Drawing (...) on recent philosophical theories of concept possession, the article argues that this disparity between medical and lay vocabulary implies that it is, in an important range of cases, easier for doctors to create a communicative platform of shared concepts by using and explaining special medical expressions than by using common lay expressions. This conclusion is contrasted with the view that doctors and patients typically understand each other when they use lay vocabulary. Obviously, use of expressions like ‘sickness’ or ‘illness’ does not necessarily lead to poor communication, but it is important that doctors have an awareness of how patients interpret such terms. (shrink)

Perhaps more than most professions, law depends on a corpus of specialized terms of art that are familiar to the practitioners who use them regularly in legal contexts but less familiar to lay people. Apart from the importance of enhancing transparency and public access for a key domain, making legal terms understandable to non-professionals may be crucial when non-professionals are involved in legal processes, such as civil litigation. However, simplifying terms risks changing their meaning, while explaining them in plain language (...) entails the difficulty of assessing how much of the legal content lay people need or are prepared to know. An initial step to making legalese more understandable to non-lawyers is to evaluate what lay people actually understand by the terms they come across, and so this study compared the responses of lay participants when asked about key terms form the Japanese Civil Code with the definitions and explanations given by a legal expert. One of the key findings that emerged was that there is particular difficulty with terms that lay people have some understanding of because of their use in non-legal contexts. It will be argued that supplying some background in legal theory would help facilitate educating the public about the legal meaning of terms. (shrink)

In philosophy of religion, there are few more frequently visited topics than the problem of evil, which has attracted considerable interest since the time of Epicurus. It is well known that the problem of evil involves responding to the apparent tension between 1) belief in the existence of a good, all powerful, all knowing God and 2) the existence of evil—such as personal suffering embodied in the experience of cancer. While a great deal has been written concerning abstract philosophical (...) class='Hi'>theories that academics use to explain the existence of evil, much less has been written about how religious lay people make sense of evil and suffering. What explanations, meanings, and perceptions do they hold concerning the religious significance of evil? What can theologians and philosophers learn from these lay experiences? Our interdisciplinary team designed an experiment to identify the religious significance that personal suffering held for a group of religious cancer sufferers. We interviewed twenty-nine self-identified evangelical Christians who had received a cancer diagnosis at some point in their lives for our experiment. Since all interviewees identified as Christians, it was expected that they would assent to belief in a theistic God. It was also expected that each interviewee would assent the existence of evil and see their cancer experience as a dramatic and personal instance of an evil event. The explicit existential threat of cancer guarantees that the individual has much at stake in the experience. Furthermore, the pain and suffering that typically accompanies either the cancer itself or cancer treatments make it a compelling example of evil experienced in a very personal way. Finally, even when successfully treated, the ongoing threat of potentially fatal recurrence looms over the sufferer for years to come. We asked 17 questions related to the religious significance of their cancer experience in each interview and coded these interviews looking for five distinct types of explanations for/meaning of evil: trusting God in mystery, free will, moral development, spiritual growth, and growth in human relationships/community. These categories were meant to correspond loosely to five philosophical responses to the existence of evil.Our interviews included several important results. First, 79% of interviewees had at least one answer that fit into the ‘trust God in mystery’ category of responses with 48% using this category of responses as their most frequently cited theme. This result could be interpreted as a kind of generic theodical response: God has a good, but unknown reason for allowing evil/suffering. Alternatively, another possible interpretation is that at least some of these interviewees intuited something similar to skeptical theism, since it claims that if one understands the type of God proposed by theism and possesses an accurate view of human cognitive capacities, it is apparent that there is no real tension to be resolved between theism and the existence of evil. Some of our interviewees seemed to believe not only that the answer to why evil exists is mysterious, but that they simply could not have the necessary perspective to judge what kinds of purposes God might have for allowing this painful episode in their lives.While it was unsurprising that religious sufferers would find it important to trust God in ambiguous difficult circumstances, more surprisingly, we found that 52% of our respondents did not judge that their cancer experience was at all in tension with their religious beliefs. Whereas a broad range of philosophers and theologians acknowledge that there is at least an apparent conflict between the existence of a good, all-powerful God and the existence of evil, most of our interviewees did not even perceive an apparent tension between theistic beliefs and their painful cancer experiences that would be in need of additional reconciliation.There are at least two ways this result might be interpreted. First, our interviewees might hold additional beliefs that make the existence of evil easier for them to accept. After all, these interviewees were not ‘bare theists’ who held only to the existence of God, but presumably held a broad range of religious beliefs which may already serve to reconcile the existence of evil: that growing closer to God is more important than earthly life itself, that in evil in this life allows us a greater appreciation of a blessed eternity, or simply that ‘God works for our good in mysterious ways.’ Thus, a fully developed Christian worldview may already accommodate the existence of evil in a way not fully appreciated by philosophers.Another possible interpretation is that at least some of our interviewees were not adequately reflective to perceive the tension between their religious beliefs and their experience of suffering. There is at least some reason to doubt this explanation as an overarching interpretation of this result since our interviewees were generally well educated with the median participant holding at least a Bachelor’s degree, and most were ongoing participants in a cancer support group ensuring long-term ongoing engagement with their cancer experience.A final significant finding is that a high portion of our interviewees, 83% reported specific examples of beneficial personal growth—moral, spiritual, or relational— that resulted from their cancer experience. When asked about their cancer experience’s broad effect upon their lives in these areas they volunteered at least one example of a benefit they received in these areas. Depending on one’s accompanying value theory and whether such benefits might have been otherwise achieved, they might provide a morally sufficient reason for the existence of suffering. Our interviewees frequently described experiencing the kind of benefits at the heart of John Hick’s soul making theodicy and Eleonore Stump’s ‘spiritual growth’ theodicy, providing at least some corroborating evidence for such views. Experiences common to our interviewees were similar to what such theodicies would predict. (shrink)

With the growth in income inequality now regarded as a crucial social issue, business and society scholars need to prepare themselves for the ambitious task of studying how corporate practices, intentionally or not, contribute to this trend. This article offers starting points for scholars wishing to explore this topic but lacking the necessary background for doing so. First, it offers suggestions as to finding the extant empirical work necessary for informed analysis. This is followed by an examination of alternate methods (...) of theory construction relevant to this topic, which transcend the limitations of the experimental science model of theory building. It then provides an example of a social science theory that exemplifies how empirically informed open theory can illuminate the dynamics behind growing inequality. The article concludes by suggesting that progress in this area requires embracing the spirit of earlier approaches to business and society scholarship while abandoning some outdated assumptions. (shrink)

Little has been written recently about the obligations of lay people in professional relationships. Yet the Code of Medical Ethics adopted by the American Medical Association in 1847 included an extensive statement on ‘Obligations of patients to their physicians’. After critically examining the philosophical foundations of this statement, I provide an alternative account of lay obligations in professional relationships. Based on a hypothetical social contract and included in a full specification of professional as well as lay obligations, this account requires (...) lay people to honor commitments and disclose relevant information. Ethically, the account assumes that all parties in lay-professional relationships should be given equal consideration and respect in determining rights and obligations. Factually, it assumes that the treatment of many illnesses and injuries requires collaboration and cooperation among lay persons and health professionals, that medical resources and personnel are limited, and that medicine, nursing, and related health professions, are, in MacIntyre's sense, practices. Keywords: patient-physician relationship, moral responsibility of patients, health professionals' duties, contract theory and lay-health professional relationship, health professions as "practices", commitments, truth-telling CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

We argue that analogical reasoning, particularly Gentner's structure-mapping theory, provides an integrative theoretical framework through which we can better understand the development of symbol use. Analogical reasoning can contribute both to the understanding of others’ intentions and the establishment of correspondences between symbols and their referents, two crucial components of symbolic understanding. We review relevant research on the development of symbolic representations, intentionality, comparison, and similarity, and demonstrate how structure-mapping theory can shed light on several ostensibly disparate findings in the (...) literature. Focusing on visual symbols, we argue that analogy underlies and supports the understanding of both intention and correspondence, which may enter into a reciprocal bootstrapping process that leads children to gain the prodigious human capacity of symbol use. (shrink)

There are three main points of the paper. 1. There are straightforward ways of manipulating expected gains and losses that result in a divergence between fair betting odds and credence. Such manipulations are familiar from tools of finance. One can easily see that the Sleeping Beauty case is structured in such a way as to result in a divergence between fair betting odds and credence. 2. The inspection of credences and betting odds in certain betting situations shows that the two (...) main extant positions, Elga's and Lewis's, are both mistaken. 3. My proposal may seem to require a revision of probability theory but it does not. The Sleeping Beauty case merely calls attention to a constraint on partitioning of possibility space that is usually satisfied as a matter of course but can in fact be violated. (shrink)

Many theories about the teaching of logic and critical thinking take for granted that theoretical learning, the learning of formal rules for example, and its practical application are sufficient to master the tools taught and to take the habit of using them. However, this way of teaching is not efficient, a conclusion supported by much work in cognitive science. Approaching cognition evolutionarily with dual-process theories allows for an explanation of these insufficiencies and offers clues on how we could (...) teach critical thinking and logic more efficiently. In this article, we want to present this approach and explore these leads in order to make some pedagogical recommendations and lay the foundations of a framework. We will put forward an example of the application of this research program with philosophy for children. (shrink)

The "theory of mind" framework has been the fastest growing body of empirical research in contemporary psychology. It has given rise to a range of positions on what it takes to relate to others as intentional beings. This book brings together disparate strands of ToM research, lays out historical roots of the idea, and indicates better alternatives.

The target article is a major step toward integrating the biological and human-related sciences. It is highly relevant to economics and public policy formulation in the real world, in addition to its basic scientific import. My commentary covers a number of points, including avoiding an excessively narrow focus on agriculture, the importance of multilevel selection and complex systems theory, and utopic versus dystopic scenarios for the future.

In psychiatry, the concept of “insight” commonly refers to a patient’s judgment that they have a mental illness and need clinical treatment. However, this concept has been criticized because it imposes psychiatric knowledge on the subjective experiences of mental illness and possible interventions. A significant body of literature is critical of mental health interventions; however, insight remains under-explored in this realm. This paper adds to critical analyses of insight by exploring how it is defined and deployed by mental health professionals (...) in an acute inpatient mental health unit in a Canadian general hospital and what disciplinary and epistemic effects it has on patients. To this end, I draw on Foucault’s theories of psychiatric power and Fricker’s concept of epistemic injustice to analyze results from an ethnographic study conducted in an inpatient mental health unit. The results show how patients’ resistance to medical compliance is framed by staff as a lack of insight, which reinforces the psychiatric model of mental illness. (shrink)

Hilary Putnam's influential analysis of the 'division of linguistic labour' has a striking application in the area of doctor-patient interaction: patients typically think of themselves as consumers of technical medical terms in the sense that they normally defer to health professionals' explanations of meaning. It is at the same time well documented that patients tend to think they are entitled to understand lay health terms like 'sickness' and 'illness' in ways that do not necessarily correspond to health professionals' understanding. Drawing (...) on recent philosophical theories of concept possession, the article argues that this disparity between medical and lay vocabulary implies that it is, in an important range of cases, easier for doctors to create a communicative platform of shared concepts by using and explaining special medical expressions than by using common lay expressions. This conclusion is contrasted with the view that doctors and patients typically understand each other when they use lay vocabulary. Obviously, use of expressions like 'sickness' or 'illness' does not necessarily lead to poor communication, but it is important that doctors have an awareness of how patients interpret such terms. (shrink)

What would it mean to apply quantum theory, without restriction and without involving any notion of measurement and state reduction, to the whole universe? What would realism about the quantum state then imply? This book brings together an illustrious team of philosophers and physicists to debate these questions. The contributors broadly agree on the need, or aspiration, for a realist theory that unites micro- and macro-worlds. But they disagree on what this implies. Some argue that if unitary quantum evolution has (...) unrestricted application, and if the quantum state is taken to be something physically real, then this universe emerges from the quantum state as one of countless others, constantly branching in time, all of which are real. The result, they argue, is many worlds quantum theory, also known as the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics. No other realist interpretation of unitary quantum theory has ever been found. Others argue in reply that this picture of many worlds is in no sense inherent to quantum theory, or fails to make physical sense, or is scientifically inadequate. The stuff of these worlds, what they are made of, is never adequately explained, nor are the worlds precisely defined; ordinary ideas about time and identity over time are compromised; no satisfactory role or substitute for probability can be found in many worlds theories; they can't explain experimental data; anyway, there are attractive realist alternatives to many worlds. Twenty original essays, accompanied by commentaries and discussions, examine these claims and counterclaims in depth. They consider questions of ontology - the existence of worlds; probability - whether and how probability can be related to the branching structure of the quantum state; alternatives to many worlds - whether there are one-world realist interpretations of quantum theory that leave quantum dynamics unchanged; and open questions even given many worlds, including the multiverse concept as it has arisen elsewhere in modern cosmology. A comprehensive introduction lays out the main arguments of the book, which provides a state-of-the-art guide to many worlds quantum theory and its problems. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Richard Rorty Lays Down the LawLeon SuretteRichard Rorty has found a large cross-disciplinary academic audience for his argument that philosophy ought to abandon its self-appointed role as a foundational discipline and adopt the “ironic” and “conversational” practices of literary criticism. Explicitly invoking early pragmatism—which argued that philosophy should join the natural sciences and regard itself as “the workshop of being, where we catch fact in the making” 1 —Rorty (...) argues that philosophers should now abandon the natural sciences, and become “edifiers” and “ironist theorists” on the model of literary criticism. 2Rorty’s pragmatism amounts to the claim that philosophy ought to wind up and put away its long preoccupation with metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology and abandon the pretense of deductive rigor to become “dialectical.” This newly reformed philosophy would, as Rorty puts it, “play off vocabularies against one another, rather than merely... infer propositions from one another” (CIS, p. 78). Rorty’s belief in philosophy as a form of conversation may owe less to American pragmatism, however, than to Continental hermeneutics (particularly Hans Georg Gadamer’s Truth and Method). Nevertheless, I intend to take him at his word, and apply the fundamental tenet of pragmatism to his own theorizing. I take the following remark by William James as definitional of American pragmatism: “What practical difference would it make to any one if this notion rather than that notion were true? If no practical difference whatever can be traced, then the alternatives mean practically the same thing, and all dispute is idle. Whenever a dispute is serious, we ought to be able to show that some practical difference that must follow from one side or the other’s being right” (PR, p. 26).In the light of this pragmatic principal, most philosophical and [End Page 261] literary theories make little if any practical difference to the practice of literary criticism, although philosophy and theory can displace, occlude, or banish it. The whole issue turns on what is meant by the term, literary criticism. Rorty assumes that criticism is an interpretive activity, and that nothing further need be said. Yet interpretation is not the sole activity of literary criticism, nor is the practice of literary interpretation sufficiently well formulated to serve as a model upon which philosophy could reform itself.Although Rorty’s proposed reformation of philosophy on the model of literary criticism is seen by many literary critics as a friendly takeover, it can just as easily be seen as hostile, as an updating and domestication of Hans Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, which would make interpretation foundational for all of the knowledge industries. With respect to his paternalistic attitude toward literary criticism, Rorty is very much within a philosophical tradition of foundationalism that begins, as far as literary criticism is concerned, with Plato’s Ion. Whereas Plato argued that literary criticism is a misguided or unworthy form of discourse, Rorty turns it into an approved variety of philosophical discourse. But he can achieve this end only by occluding (through misrepresentation) the praxis of literary criticism as it has been constituted both within and without the academy.Rorty’s project of “edification” through the reform of philosophy as “conversation” was first proposed in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (pp. 360, 371) and has subsequently been refined in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, where it becomes the Nietzschean project of “making the best selves for ourselves that we can” (p. 80). This goal is said to be achieved through “literary criticism,” which he describes as “the attempt to play off vocabularies against one another” (pp. 78–79). Such an idea is enormously flattering to literary critics, and, not surprisingly, has garnered Rorty many admirers in literature departments. But it rests upon a highly selective characterization of literary criticism—a characterization which conforms roughly to New Critical and Deconstructive practice, though not to longer-standing critical practices.Rorty ignores literary criticism’s long standing self-definition as the reinterpretation or redescription of object texts. Instead, he assumes that the practice of Harold Bloom, in which both “creative” and critical discourse are regarded as varieties of usurpation or “misprision,” is standard. Rorty speaks of “literary discourse” as a... (shrink)

Children must be taught morality. They must be taught to recognise the authority of moral standards and to understand what makes them authoritative. But there’s a problem: the content and justification of morality are matters of reasonable disagreement among reasonable people. This makes it hard to see how educators can secure children’s commitment to moral standards without indoctrinating them. -/- In A Theory of Moral Education, Michael Hand tackles this problem head on. He sets out to show that moral education (...) can and should be fully rational. It is true that many moral standards and justificatory theories are controversial, and educators have an obligation to teach these nondirectively, with the aim of enabling children to form their own considered views. But reasonable moral disagreement does not go all the way down: some basic moral standards are robustly justified, and these should be taught directively, with the aim of bringing children to recognise and understand their authority. -/- This is an original and important contribution to the philosophy of moral education, which lays a new theoretical foundation for the urgent practical task of teaching right from wrong. (shrink)

WE AIM HERE to outline a theory of evidence for use. More specifically we lay foundations for a guide for the use of evidence in predicting policy effectiveness in situ, a more comprehensive guide than current standard offerings, such as the Maryland rules in criminology, the weight of evidence scheme of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), or the US ‘What Works Clearinghouse’. The guide itself is meant to be well-grounded but at the same time to give practicable (...) advice, that is, advice that can be used by policy-makers not expert in the natural and social sciences, assuming they are well-intentioned and have a reasonable but limited amount of time and resources available for searching out evidence and deliberating. (shrink)

In theory and practice, the notion of fairness is far from simple. The principle is often elusive and subject to confusion, even in institutions of law, usage, and custom. In Fairness, Nicholas Rescher aims to liberate this concept from misunderstandings by showing how its definitive characteristics prevent it from being absorbed by such related conceptions as paternalistic benevolence, radical egalitarianism, and social harmonization. Rescher demonstrates that equality before the state is an instrument of justice, not of social utility or public (...) welfare, and argues that the notion of fairness stops well short of a literal egalitarianism. Rescher disposes of the confusions arising from economists' penchant to focus on individual preferences, from decision theorists' concern for averting envy, and from political theorists' sympathy for egalitarianism. In their place he shows how the idea of distributive equity forms the core of the concept of fairness in matters of distributive justice. The coordination of shares with valid claims is the crux of the concept of fairness. In Rescher's view, this means that the pursuit of fairness requires objective rather than subjective evaluation of the goods being shared. This is something quite different from subjective equity based on the personal evaluation of goods by those laying claim to them. Insofar as subjective equity is a concern, the appropriate procedure for its realization is a process of maximum value distribution. Further, Rescher demonstrates that in matters of distributive justice, the distinction between new ownership and preexisting ownership is pivotal and calls for proceeding on very different principles depending on the case. How one should proceed depends on context, and what is adjudged fair is pragmatic, in that there are different requirements for effectiveness in achieving the aims and purposes of the sort of distribution that is intended. Rescher concludes that fairness is a fundamentally ethical concept. Its distinctive modus operandi contrasts sharply with the aims of paternalism, preference-maximizing, or economic advantage. Fairness will be of interest to philosophers, economists, and political scientists. "[Fairness is] one of the most forceful conceptual analysis of fairness yet produced." -Ludwig Beckman, The Review of Metaphysics Nicholas Rescher is University Professor of Philosophy and vice chairman of the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. He has written more than seventy books in various areas of philosophy, including Complexity: A Philosophical Overview and Inquiry Dynamics, both published by Transaction. (shrink)

The theory-theory is not supported by evidence in the everyday actions of infants and toddlers whose lives a Theory of Mind is meant radically to transform. This paper reviews some of these challenges to the theory-theory, particularly from communication and deception. We argue that the theory’s disconnection from action is both inevitable and paradoxical. The mind–behaviour dualism upon which it is premised requires a conceptual route to knowing minds and disallows a real test of the theory through the study of (...) action. Taking engagement seriously avoids these problems and requires that both lay people and psychologists be participants rather than observers in order to know, and indeed to create, minds. (shrink)

Plusieurs théories de l’enseignement de la logique et de la pensée critique prennent pour acquis que l’apprentissage théorique, celui des règles formelles par exemple, et son application pratique sont suffisants pour maîtriser les outils enseignés et pour prendre l’habitude de les mettre en usage. Toutefois, tout indique que cet enseignement n’est pas efficace, une conclusion supportée par plusieurs travaux en sciences cognitives. Approcher l’étude de la cognition évolutionnairement avec les théories à processus duaux permet une explication de ces insuffisances, tout (...) en offrant des pistes pour aborder l’enseignement de la pensée critique et de la logique de manière plus efficace. Dans cet article, nous souhaitons présenter cette approche et explorer ces pistes de solution afin de faire quelques recommandations pédagogiques et mettre en place un cadre théorique. Nous présenterons un exemple d’application de ce programme de recherche avec la philosophie pour enfants.Many theories about the teaching of logic and critical thinking take for granted that theoretical learning, the learning of formal rules for example, and its practical application are sufficient to master the tools taught and to take the habit of using them. However, this way of teaching is not efficient, a conclusion supported by much work in cognitive science. Approaching cognition evolutionarily with dual-process theories allows for an explanation of these insufficiencies and offers clues on how we could teach critical thinking and logic more efficiently. In this article, we want to present this approach and explore these leads in order to make some pedagogical recommendations and lay the foundations of a framework. We will put forward an example of the application of this research program with philosophy for children. (shrink)

One issue within conspiracy theory theory is whether, or to what extent, our central concept – – should map on to the common, lay sense of the term. Some conspiracy theory theorists insist that we use the term as everyday people use it. So, for example, if the term has a pejorative connotation in everyday parlance, then academic work on the concept should reflect that. Other conspiracy theory theorists take a more revisionist approach, arguing instead that while their use of (...) the theoretical concept should bear some relation to its use in natural language, it need not follow it subserviently. I argue that elements of this debate mirror related debates that were prominent in the philosophy of mind in the 1980s over folk psychology and eliminative materialism (debates that continue today, such as within the philosophy of perception and theories over how to individuate the senses). Then, there was a debate over whether the concepts of commonsense psychology, such as or, should be treated as theoretical posits, and hence open to significant revision or elimination, or whether they were instead the targets of explanation. I will argue that an eliminativist approach to has significant merit. (shrink)

In books such as The World Within the World and The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, astronomer John Barrow has emerged as a leading writer on our efforts to understand the universe. Timothy Ferris, writing in The Times Literary Supplement of London, described him as "a temperate and accomplished humanist, scientist, and philosopher of science--a man out to make a contribution, not a show." Now Barrow offers the general reader another fascinating look at modern physics, as he explores the quest for a (...) single, unifying theory that will unlock nature's secrets. Theories of Everything is more than a history of science, more than a popular report on recent research and discoveries. Barrow provides a reflective, intelligent commentary on what a true Theory of Everything would be--its ingredients, its limitations, and what it could tell us about the universe. Never before, he writes, have physicists been so confident and so eager in the hunt for this "cosmic Rosetta Stone," as he calls it: "a single all-embracing picture of all the laws of nature from which the inevitability of all things seen must follow with unimpeachable logic." He lays out eight essential ingredients for a Theory of Everything and then explores each in turn, tracing how our knowledge has developed and how scientific discovery relates to our changing philosophy and religious thought in each area. Some of these ingredients are obvious--the laws of nature must be explained, for example, as well as its organizing principles--but others may be surprising, such as broken symmetries and selection biases. A Theory of Everything must account for the fact that the universe is "messy and complicated," he tells us, and for the limitations imposed by the questions we ask and the information we can obtain. The key lies in the remarkable capacity of mathematics to express the fundamental workings of the physical world--a language that the human mind is uniquely equipped to understand and manipulate. Barrow examines what mathematics actually is and describes how it makes the universe intelligible and provides a path to the underlying coherence in nature--which has led, in fact, to arguments that the universe itself is a vast computer. Yet even the most complete theory, even the most comprehensive mathematical explanation, cannot account for the uncomputable varieties of human experience and thought. "No non-poetic account of reality," he writes, "can be complete." In a field where the authorities converse in equations and mathematical notations, John Barrow speaks with the voice of thoughtful and knowledgeable humanist. Written with eloquence and expertise, Theories of Everything establishes a new perspective on humanity's efforts to explain the universe. (shrink)

This essay surveys representationalist theories of phenomenal consciousness as well as the major arguments for them. It also takes up two major objections. The essay is divided into five sections. Section I offers some introductory remarks on phenomenal consciousness. Section II presents the classic view of phenomenal consciousness to which representationalists are opposed. Section III canvasses various versions of representationalism about consciousness. Section IV lays out the main arguments for the representationalist stance. The final section addresses the two objections.

This dissertation aims to provide a comprehensive account of set theory with urelements. In Chapter 1, I present mathematical and philosophical motivations for studying urelement set theory and lay out the necessary technical preliminaries. Chapter 2 is devoted to the axiomatization of urelement set theory, where I introduce a hierarchy of axioms and discuss how ZFC with urelements should be axiomatized. The breakdown of this hierarchy of axioms in the absence of the Axiom of Choice is also explored. In Chapter (...) 3, I investigate forcing with urelements and develop a new approach that addresses a drawback of the existing machinery. I demonstrate that forcing can preserve, destroy, and recover the axioms isolated in Chapter 2 and discuss how Boolean ultrapowers can be applied in urelement set theory. Chapter 4 delves into class theory with urelements. I first discuss the issue of axiomatizing urelement class theory and then explore the second-order reflection principle with urelements. In particular, assuming large cardinals, I construct a model of second-order reflection where the principle of limitation of size fails. (shrink)