This interdisciplinary new work explores one of the central theoretical problems in linguistics: learnability. The authors, from different backgrounds---linguistics, philosophy, computer science, psychology and cognitive science-explore the idea that language acquisition proceeds through general purpose learning mechanisms, an approach that is broadly empiricist both methodologically and psychologically. Written by four researchers in the full range of relevant fields: linguistics, psychology, computer science, and cognitive science, the book sheds light on the central problems of learnability and language, and traces their implications (...) for key questions of theoretical linguistics and the study of language acquisition. (shrink)

Intent and mitigating circumstances play a central role in moral and legal assessments in large-scale industrialized societies. Al- though these features of moral assessment are widely assumed to be universal, to date, they have only been studied in a narrow range of societies. We show that there is substantial cross-cultural variation among eight traditional small-scale societies (ranging from hunter-gatherer to pastoralist to horticulturalist) and two Western societies (one urban, one rural) in the extent to which intent and mitigating circumstances influence (...) moral judgments. Although participants in all societies took such factors into account to some degree, they did so to very different extents, varying in both the types of considerations taken into account and the types of violations to which such considerations were applied. The particular patterns of assessment characteristic of large-scale industrialized societies may thus reflect relatively recently culturally evolved norms rather than inherent features of human moral judgment. (shrink)

Decades of research conducted in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, & Democratic (WEIRD) societies have led many scholars to conclude that the use of mental states in moral judgment is a human cognitive universal, perhaps an adaptive strategy for selecting optimal social partners from a large pool of candidates. However, recent work from a more diverse array of societies suggests there may be important variation in how much people rely on mental states, with people in some societies judging accidental harms just (...) as harshly as intentional ones. To explain this variation, we develop and test a novel cultural evolutionary theory proposing that the intensity of kin-based institutions will favor less attention to mental states when judging moral violations. First, to better illuminate the historical distribution of the use of intentions in moral judgment, we code and analyze anthropological observations from the Human Area Relations Files. This analysis shows that notions of strict liability—wherein the role for mental states is reduced—were common across diverse societies around the globe. Then, by expanding an existing vignette-based experimental dataset containing observations from 321 people in a diverse sample of 10 societies, we show that the intensity of a society's kin-based institutions can explain a substantial portion of the population-level variation in people's reliance on intentions in three different kinds of moral judgments. Together, these lines of evidence suggest that people's use of mental states has coevolved culturally to fit their local kin-based institutions. We suggest that although reliance on mental states has likely been a feature of moral judgment in human communities over historical and evolutionary time, the relational fluidity and weak kin ties of today's WEIRD societies position these populations' psychology at the extreme end of the global and historical spectrum. (shrink)

Really statistical explanation is a hitherto neglected form of noncausal scientific explanation. Explanations in population biology that appeal to drift are RS explanations. An RS explanation supplies a kind of understanding that a causal explanation of the same result cannot supply. Roughly speaking, an RS explanation shows the result to be mere statistical fallout.

Using Gebharter’s representation, we consider aspects of the problem of discovering the structure of unmeasured submechanisms when the variables in those submechanisms have not been measured. Exploiting an early insight of Sober’s, we provide a correct algorithm for identifying latent, endogenous structure—submechanisms—for a restricted class of structures. The algorithm can be merged with other methods for discovering causal relations among unmeasured variables, and feedback relations between measured variables and unobserved causes can sometimes be learned.

Continuing his exploration of the organization of complexity and the science of design, this new edition of Herbert Simon's classic work on artificial ...

Liberal neutrality requires that, given the diversity of conceptions of the good life held by people, the state should be in some sense neutral between these conceptions. Just what that sense is has been a matter of debate but it seems generally accepted that neutrality is a property of the justifications for government action and not of the consequences of such action. In other words, the state must be neutral by avoiding invoking any conception of the good in its justification (...) for laws and policies and by avoiding having any laws and policies that can be justified only by reference to some conception of the good. It need not, so it seems generally accepted, ensure that the consequences of its laws and policies do not favor some conceptions of the good over others. Against this commonly held view, in this chapter I argue that justificatory neutrality is inadequate as a full picture of what liberal neutrality means and that some conception of consequential neutrality is more plausible. (shrink)

The reductive, as opposed to deductive, view of logic is the form of logic that is, perhaps, most widely employed in practical reasoning. In particular, it is the basis of logic programming. Here, building on the idea of uniform proof in reductive logic, we give a treatment of logic programming for BI, the logic of bunched implications, giving both operational and denotational semantics, together with soundness and completeness theorems, all couched in terms of the resource interpretation of BI’s semantics. We (...) use this set-up as a basis for exploring how coalgebraic semantics can, in contrast to the basic denotational semantics, be used to describe the concrete operational choices that are an essential part of proof-search. The overall aim, toward which this paper can be seen as an initial step, is to develop a uniform, generic, mathematical framework for understanding the relationship between the deductive structure of logics and the control structures of the corresponding reductive paradigm. (shrink)

This investigation examines several key factors believed to promote human flourishing, specifically: Factor 1: Age, Education, & Healthcare, Factor 2: Labor Force Participation, Factor 3: Crime, Factor 4: Income, Factor 5: Youth Unemployment and Factor 6: Voting Behavior. Data was examined at the county level, and collected from a variety of US government and non-governmental organizations. Our investigation into the conditions necessary to promote human flourishing uses internal migration within the United States as the indicator of “unhappy” communities. The findings (...) reveal that all factors are important in emigration somewhere, but the factors vary for different counties. As a result, attempts to address the ills of society require an appreciation of geography and context. (shrink)

Guilt and shame are self-conscious emotions with implications for mental health, social and occupational functioning, and the effectiveness of sports practice. To date, the assessment and role of athlete-specific guilt and shame has been under-researched. Reporting data from 174 junior elite cricketers, the present study utilized exploratory factor analysis in validating the Athletic Perceptions of Performance Scale, assessing three distinct and statistically reliable factors: athletic shame-proneness, guilt-proneness, and no-concern. Conditional process analysis indicated that APPS shame-proneness mediated the relationship between general (...) and athlete-specific distress. While APPS domains of guilt-proneness and no-concern were not significant mediators, they exhibited correlations in the expected direction with indices of psychological distress and well-being. The APPS may assist coaches and support staff identify players who may benefit from targeted interventions to reduce the likelihood of experiencing shame-prone states. (shrink)

ObjectiveCo-morbid insomnia and sleep apnea is a common and debilitating condition that is more difficult to treat compared to insomnia or sleep apnea-alone. Emerging evidence suggests that cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is effective in patients with COMISA, however, those with more severe sleep apnea and evidence of greater objective sleep disturbance may be less responsive to CBTi. Polysomnographic sleep study data has been used to predict treatment response to CBTi in patients with insomnia-alone, but not in patients with COMISA. (...) We used randomized controlled trial data to investigate polysomnographic predictors of insomnia improvement following CBTi, versus control in participants with COMISA.MethodsOne hundred and forty five participants with insomnia and sleep apnea [apnea-hypopnea index ≥ 15] were randomized to CBTi or no-treatment control. Mixed models were used to investigate the effect of pre-treatment AHI, sleep duration, and other traditional, and novel [quantitative electroencephalography ] polysomnographic predictors of between-group changes in Insomnia Severity Index scores from pre-treatment to post-treatment.ResultsCompared to control, CBTi was associated with greater ISI improvement among participants with; higher AHI, less wake after sleep onset, and less N3 sleep. No quantitative electroencephalographic, or other traditional polysomnographic variables predicted between-group ISI change.DiscussionAmong participants with COMISA, higher OSA severity predicted a greater treatment-response to CBTi, versus control. People with COMISA should be treated with CBTi, which is effective even in the presence of severe OSA and objective sleep disturbance. (shrink)

Computational learning theory explores the limits of learnability. Studying language acquisition from this perspective involves identifying classes of languages that are learnable from the available data, within the limits of time and computational resources available to the learner. Different models of learning can yield radically different learnability results, where these depend on the assumptions of the model about the nature of the learning process, and the data, time, and resources that learners have access to. To the extent that such assumptions (...) accurately reflect human language learning, a model that invokes them can offer important insights into the formal properties of natural languages, and the way in which their representations might be efficiently acquired. In this chapter we consider several computational learning models that have been applied to the language learning task. Some of these have yielded results that suggest that the class of natural languages cannot be efficiently learned from the primary linguistic data (PLD) available to children, through.. (shrink)

Lenin's name has been coupled with that of Marx as the co-founder of the theory of ‘Marxism-Leninism'. However, despite his emphasis on the role of revolutionary theory, Lenin's original theoretical contributions to the development of Marxism were very limited. His talents were those of a determined revolutionary, in the populist tradition of Chernyshevsky, and a brilliantly effective propagandist and political organiser. His contribution to ‘Marxism-Leninism’ was to modify Marxist orthodoxy in such a way as to integrate the political and organisational (...) principles of revolutionary populism into Marxism, on the basis of Plekhanov's ‘dialectical materialism', whose distinctive interpretation of Marxism was Lenin's constant guide and inspiration. In this paper I want to argue that Lenin never broke from the theoretical and political traditions of Russian populism, but completed Plekhanov's project by assimilating Marxism to the very different theoretical framework of populism. (shrink)

In this paper I provide an interpretation of Hegel’s account of ‘recognition’ (Anerkennung) in the 1802-3 System of Ethical Life as a critique of Fichte’s account of recognition in the 1796-7 Foundations of Natural Right. In the first three sections of the paper I argue that Fichte’s account of recognition in the domain of right is not concerned with recognition as a moral attitude. I then turn, in section four, to a discussion of Hegel’s critique and transformation of Fichte’s conception (...) of recognition. Hegel’s transformation consists, I argue, in the claim that a comprehensive account of recognition in the domain of right must be concerned with recognition as a moral attitude. (shrink)

This article argues that deciding when to die is a matter of individuality.

Multiple states are at risk of becoming uninhabitable due to climate change, forcing their populations to flee. While the 1951 Refugee Convention provides the gold standard of international protection, it is only applied to a limited subset of people fleeing their countries, those who suffer persecution, which most people fleeing climate change cannot establish. While many journalists and non-lawyers freely use the term “climate refugees,” governments, and courts, as well as UNHCR and many refugee experts, have excluded most climate refugees (...) from the Convention as a matter of legal interpretation. In our 2015 paper, “Unable to Return in the 1951 Refugee Convention: Stateless Refugees and Climate Change”, we sought to reopen the debate on “climate refugees” by arguing that some climate refugees qualify under the 1951 Convention as it is currently written (even if they are not persecuted): those who are stateless and are unable to return to their country of origin because climate change has rendered it uninhabitable. Our interpretation, however, has been rejected by Goodwin-Gill and McAdam (2021) and by Foster and Lambert (2019), which explicitly responds to our paper. Here, we address and respond to their arguments, and develop a new supplementary one, drawing on the principle of systemic integration, as enshrined in Article 31(3)(c) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. (shrink)

When, if ever, is paternalism justified? I defend the principle that paternalism is justified only if it is neutral, that is, the motivation for it is compatible with all conceptions of the good life. Three other principles of paternalism are examined. The balancing view says that we must balance the values of liberty and well-being against each other and that paternalism is justified only if well-being outweighs liberty. The consent principle says that paternalism is justified only if consented to. The (...) voluntariness principle says that intervention is justified only when the conduct in question is substantially nonvoluntary. These three views are either implausible, plausible only if they are supplemented with the neutrality principle, or plausible only because they already presuppose that principle. (shrink)

The argument that individual liberty is valuable as a means to self-development is examined in five sections. First, what is self-development? Second, why is self-development valuable? Third, is it always valuable and is it of pre-eminent value? Fourth, does it require individual liberty? Finally, two interpretations of self-development are distinguished which show that the argument for freedom is either qualified or question-begging.

Radically reorienting our understanding of the Enlightenment, this book explores the complex relations between "englightened" values and the making of scientific knowledge. Here monsters and automata, barometers and botanical gardens, polite academics and boisterous clubs, plans for violent wars and for universal peace, are all relocated in the landscape of enlightened Europe. The contributors show how changing forms of discipline, machinery, and instrumentation affected the emergence of new kinds of knowledge; consider how institutions of public rate taste and conversation helped (...) provide a common frame for the study of human and nonhuman natures; and explore the regional operations of scientific culture at the geographical fringes of Europe. Covering a wide range of scientific disciplines, both in the principal European countries and in areas peripheral to Europe, the book also includes ample illustrations and an extensive bibliography. Implicated in the rise of both fascism and liberal secularism, the moral and political values that shaped the Enlightenment remain controversial today. Through careful scrutiny of how these values influenced and were influenced by the concrete practices of its sciences, this book gives us an entirely new sense of the Enlightenment. -- from back cover. (shrink)

Develops an interpretation of Marx's work as the basis of a critique of both orthodox Marxism and of both modern economics and sociology. The core of this book is an analysis of Marx's theory of alienated labour as the basis of Marx's critique of liberal social theory. This leads to both an original interpretation of Marx's work and to the liberal foundations of the subjects of economics and sociology. This critique is developed through an account of revolution, and of the (...) parallel revolution in sociology carried through by Max Weber. The conclusion relates the critique to the subsequent developments in both Marxism and sociology. (shrink)

Simon Critchley discusses his views on education and philosophy, reflecting on his experiences as a student from childhood to the present, his anxieties about teaching, and what philosophical writing he wants from his students. By discussing his relationships with influential teachers in his life, Dr. Critchley explores the problem of teachers as masters; the need to develop philosophy’s approach to tradition while engaging problems posed to it by work on race and gender; his experience conducting online, public philosophy through (...) The Stone; and the politics of student and adjunct labor in higher education. (shrink)

A major argument for vegetarianism is that eating animals causes unjustified suffering. While this argument has been articulated by several people, it has received surprisingly little attention. Here I restate it in a way that I believe is most convincing, considering and rejecting the two main justifications for causing suffering in order to eat animals. I compare it to some other prominent arguments for vegetarianism, and discuss a major objection to the argument which focuses on whether the animals would not (...) exist if not bred to be eaten. (shrink)

This article examines compulsory vaccination from the perspective of Nozick's theory of rights. It argues that the unvaccinated are a threat, even if unintended, to the rights of others. The reasons Nozick provides for when such threats may be forcibly prevented, such as the identifiability of the rights violator, general fear of the risky activity, probability of harm, and the general benefits of the activity, are examined, and it is argued that those reasons weigh in favour of prohibition of the (...) threat and hence in favour of compulsory vaccination. It is also argued that anyone opposed to compulsory vaccination on Nozickian grounds faces a dilemma: if they reject compulsory vaccination, they also risk rejecting the very foundations of the legitimacy of the state. (shrink)

The aim of this book is to explore some of the relations between morality and politics. Areas in which these are explored include the role of ideals in foreign policy , committing evil for the sake of a greater good in wartime, and lying and deception in political affairs. Illustrative examples are used throughout and include the Iraq war and its political fallout , Allied and Axis actions during the Second World War, decisions made by former Australian Prime Minister John (...) Howard and thought-experiments such as whether to lie about the Jewish family hiding in the basement when the Nazis come knocking at the door.Chapters 1 and 2, making up the first half of the book, are the highlight of it. In them, Coady confronts the realist critique of morality in foreign …. (shrink)

It is widely held that intuitive dualism—an implicit default mode of thought that takes minds to be separable from bodies and capable of independent existence—is a human universal. Among the findings taken to support universal intuitive dualism is a pattern of evidence in which “psychological” traits (knowledge, desires) are judged more likely to continue after death than bodily or “biological” traits (perceptual, physiological, and bodily states). Here, we present cross-cultural evidence from six study populations, including non-Western societies with diverse belief (...) systems, that shows that while this pattern exists, the overall pattern of responses nonetheless does not support intuitive dualism in afterlife beliefs. Most responses of most participants across all cultures tested were not dualist. While our sample is in no way intended to capture the full range of human societies and afterlife beliefs, it captures a far broader range of cultures than in any prior study, and thus puts the case for afterlife beliefs as evidence for universal intuitive dualism to a strong test. Based on these findings, we suggest that while dualist thinking is a possible mode of thought enabled by evolved human psychology, such thinking does not constitute a default mode of thought. Rather, our data support what we will call intuitive materialism—the view that the underlying intuitive systems for reasoning about minds and death produce as a default judgment that mental states cease to exist with bodily death. (shrink)

What makes individual freedom valuable? People have always believed in freedom, have sought it, and have sometimes fought and died for it. The belief that it is something to be valued is widespread. But does this belief have a rational foundation? This book examines answers to these questions that are based on the welfare of the person whose freedom is at stake. There are various conceptions of a worthwhile life, a life that is valuable for the person whose life it (...) is. These conceptions will be examined to see whether they are plausible and what their connection, if any, is to freedom. Are they compelling foundations for freedom? Does freedom make a person’s life better or would his/her welfare be advanced by restricting freedom? (shrink)

Argues that it is not only a point of literal construction, but also inherent in the object and purpose of the 1951 Refugee Convention, that displaced stateless persons unable to return to their countries of former habitual residence may be eligible for refugee status even if unpersecuted. 'Unable to return' as it occurs in the clause following the semi-colon of 1(A)2 of the 1951 Refugee Convention must be understood as a term of art subject to appropriate canons of construction in (...) its own right. Its construal must therefore be more restrictive than many commentators have suggested, though not so strict as to preclude all but persecuted persons. Then argues that, as a case study, those who are displaced from their island nations because those nations have submerged beneath the sea will count as 'unable to return' in the relevant sense, and so will qualify for Convention refugee status, if they count as lacking a nationality, i.e. as stateless. (shrink)

In Beyond Neutrality, George Sher criticises the idea that state neutrality between competing conceptions of the good helps protect society from oppression. While he is correct that some governments are non-neutral without being oppressive, I argue that those governments may be neutral at the core of their foundations. The possibility of non-neutrality leading to oppression is further explored; some conceptions of the good would favour oppression while others would not. While it is possible that a non-neutral state may avoid oppression, (...) it is argued that the risks are so great that it is better to bet on government being neutral, thereby minimizing the possibility of oppression. (shrink)

Music theorists of almost all ages employ a concept of "Nature" to justify observations or statements about music. The understanding of what "Nature" is, however, is subject to cultural and historical differences. In tracing these explanatory strategies and their changes in music theories between c. 1600 and 1900, these essays explore (for the first time in a book-length study) how the multifarious conceptions of nature, located variously between scientific reason and divine power, are brought to bear on music theory and (...) how they affect our understanding of music. (shrink)

This essay addresses the role of trust in political philosophy. In particular, it examines the idea that trust is necessary for a particular type of government action — paternalistic action — to be justified. Liberal theory and liberal democratic practice are characterized by a large degree of anti-paternalism, understanding paternalism to be the restriction of individual liberty for a person’s good, instead of to protect or benefit others. It would be a mistake to think that liberal democracies have no paternalism; (...) seatbelt, motorcycle helmet, and drug prohibition laws, for example, are probably at least partly motivated by paternalistic reasons. But it is easy to imagine more pervasive paternalism. Society could, and does in some cultures, restrict people’s choices of occupation, marriage partners, and where to live, with the rationale that these restrictions are for people’s good. Many people believe that the liberal position is the correct one, that more pervasive paternalism would be unjustified, but what is the philosophical justification for anti-paternalism? (shrink)

The argument that individual liberty is valuable as a means to self-development is examined in fivesections. First, what is self-development? Second, why is self-development valuable? Third, is italways valuable and is it of pre-eminent value? Fourth, does it require individual liberty? Finally, twointerpretations of self-development are distinguished which show that the argument for freedom iseither qualified or question-begging.

We seem to have rich experience across our visual field. Yet we are surprisingly poor at tasks involving the periphery and low spatial attention. Recently, Lau and collaborators have argued that a phenomenon known as “subjective inflation” allows us to reconcile these phenomena. I show inflation is consistent with multiple interpretations, with starkly different consequences for richness and for theories of consciousness more broadly. What’s more, we have only weak reasons favouring any of these interpretations over the others. I provisionally (...) argue for an interpretation on which subjective experience is genuinely rich, but (in peripheral/unattended areas) unreliable as a guide to the external world. The main challenge for this view is that it appears to imply that experience in the periphery is not just unreliable but unstable. However, I argue that this consequence, while initially appearing unintuitive, is in fact plausible. (shrink)

Sociological explanations of racism tend to concentrate on the structures and dynamics of modern life that facilitate discrimination and hierarchies of inequality. In doing so, they often fail to address why racial hatred arises (as opposed to how it arises) as well as to explain why it can be so visceral and explosive in character. Bringing together sociological perspectives with psychoanalytic concepts and tools, this text offers a clear, accessible and thought-provoking synthesis of varieties of theory, with the aim of (...) clarifying the complex character of racism, discrimination and social exclusion in the contemporary world. (shrink)