Self-deception raises complex questions about the nature of belief and the structure of the human mind. In this book, Alfred Mele addresses four of the most critical of these questions: What is it to deceive oneself? How do we deceive ourselves? Why do we deceive ourselves? Is self-deception really possible? -/- Drawing on cutting-edge empirical research on everyday reasoning and biases, Mele takes issue with commonplace attempts to equate the processes of self-deception with those of stereotypical interpersonal deception. Such (...) attempts, he demonstrates, are fundamentally misguided, particularly in the assumption that self-deception is intentional. In their place, Mele proposes a compelling, empirically informed account of the motivational causes of biased beliefs. At the heart of this theory is an appreciation of how emotion and motivation may, without our knowing it, bias our assessment of evidence for beliefs. Highlighting motivation and emotion, Mele develops a pair of approaches for explaining the two forms of self-deception: the "straight" form, in which we believe what we want to be true, and the "twisted" form, in which we believe what we wish to be false. -/- Underlying Mele's work is an abiding interest in understanding and explaining the behavior of real human beings. The result is a comprehensive, elegant, empirically grounded theory of everyday self-deception that should engage philosophers and social scientists alike. (shrink)

The author demonstrates that certain forms of irrationality - incontinent action and self-deception - which many philosophers have rejected as being logically or psychologically impossible, are indeed possible.

Each of the following claims has been defended in the scientific literature on free will and consciousness: your brain routinely decides what you will do before you become conscious of its decision; there is only a 100 millisecond window of opportunity for free will, and all it can do is veto conscious decisions, intentions, or urges; intentions never play a role in producing corresponding actions; and free will is an illusion. In Effective Intentions Alfred Mele shows that the evidence (...) offered to support these claims is sorely deficient. He also shows that there is strong empirical support for the thesis that some conscious decisions and intentions have a genuine place in causal explanations of corresponding actions. In short, there is weighty evidence of the existence of effective conscious intentions or the power of conscious will. Mele examines the accuracy of subjects' reports about when they first became aware of decisions or intentions in laboratory settings and develops some implications of warranted skepticism about the accuracy of these reports. In addition, he explores such questions as whether we must be conscious of all of our intentions and why scientists disagree about this. Mele's final chapter closes with a discussion of imaginary scientific findings that would warrant bold claims about free will and consciousness of the sort he examines in this book. (shrink)

__Language Proof and Logic_ is available as a physical book with the software included on CD and as a downloadable package of software plus the book in PDF format. The all-electronic version is available from Openproof at ggweb.stanford.edu._ The textbook/software package covers first-order language in a method appropriate for first and second courses in logic. An on-line grading services instantly grades solutions to hundred of computer exercises. It is designed to be used by philosophy instructors teaching a logic course to (...) undergraduates in philosophy, computer science, mathematics, and linguistics. Introductory material is presented in a systematic and accessible fashion. Advanced chapters include proofs of soundness and completeness for propositional and predicate logic, as well as an accessible sketch of Godel's first incompleteness theorem. The book is appropriate for a wide range of courses, from first logic courses for undergraduates to a first graduate logic course. The software package includes four programs: Tarski's World 5.0, a new version of the popular program that teaches the basic first-order language and its semantics; Fitch, a natural deduction proof environment for giving and checking first-order proofs; Boole, a program that facilitates the construction and checking of truth tables and related notions ; Submit, a program that allows students to submit exercises done with the above programs to the Grade Grinder, the automatic grading service. Grade reports are returned to the student and, if requested, to the student's instructor, eliminating the need for tedious checking of homework. All programs are available for Windows, Macintosh and Linux systems. Instructors do not need to use the programs themselves in order to be able to take advantage of their pedagogical value. More about the software can be found at lpl.stanford.edu. The price of a new text/software package includes one Registration ID, which must be used each time work is submitted to the grading service. Once activated, the Registration ID is not transferable. (shrink)

Science and Sanity has by now spawned a whole library of works by other time- binders. Some of them have been listed in previous editions. ...

Two questions guide this article. First, according to Fischer and Ravizza (jointly and otherwise), what epistemic requirements for being morally responsible for performing an action A are not also requirements for freely performing A? Second, how much progress have they made on this front? The article's main moral is for philosophers who believe that there are epistemic requirements for being morally responsible for A-ing that are not requirements for freely A-ing because they assume that Fischer (on his own or otherwise) (...) has shown that this is so. In showing that this assumption is false, I reopen an important question for these philosophers: How are epistemic requirements for being morally responsible for A-ing related to requirements for freely A-ing? This is an interesting question in its own right, of course. (shrink)

Mele uses survey methods of experimental philosophy to argue that folk notions of freedom and responsibility do not really require any dubious mind–body dualism. In his comment, Nadelhoffer questions Mele's interpretation of the experiments and adds contrary data of his own. Vargas then suggests that Mele overlooks yet another threat to free will—sourcehood. Mele replies by reinterpreting Nadelhoffer's data and rejecting Vargas’ claim that free will requires sourcehood.

_Tarski’s World_ is an innovative and exciting method of introducing students to the language of first-order logic. Using the courseware package, students quickly master the meanings of connectives and qualifiers and soon become fluent in the symbolic language at the core of modern logic. The program allows students to build three-dimensional worlds and then describe them in first-order logic. The program, compatible with Macintosh and PC formats, also contains a unique and effective corrective tool in the form of a game, (...) which methodically leads students back through their errors if they wrongly evaluate the sentences in the constructed worlds. A brand new feature in this revised and expanded edition is student access to Grade Grinder, an innovative Internet-based grading service that provides accurate and timely feedback to students whenever they need it. Students can submit solutions for the program’s more than 100 exercises to the Grade Grinder for assessment, and the results are returned quickly to the students and optionally to the teacher as well. A web-based interface also allows instructors to manage assignments and grades for their classes. Intended as a supplement to a standard logic text, _Tarski’s World_ is an essential tool for helping students learn the language of logic. (shrink)

The past twenty years have witnessed extensive collaborative research between computer scientists, logicians, linguists, philosophers, and psychologists. These interdisciplinary studies stem from the realization that researchers drawn from all fields are studying the same problem. Specifically, a common concern amongst researchers today is how logic sheds light on the nature of information. Ancient questions concerning how humans communicate, reason and decide, and modern questions about how computers should communicate, reason and decide are of prime interest to researchers in various disciplines. (...) _Words, Proofs and Diagrams_ is a collection of papers covering active research areas at the interface of logic, computer science, and linguistics. Readers of the volume will find traditional research on process logics, issues in formal semantics, and language processing. In addition, the volume also highlights a particularly new area where all three disciplines meet—the study of images and graphics as information carriers and the diagrammatic reasoning supported by them. (shrink)

One of the major philosophical texts of the 20th century, Process and Reality is based on Alfred North Whitehead’s influential lectures that he delivered at the University of Edinburgh in the 1920s on process philosophy. Whitehead’s master work in philsophy, Process and Reality propounds a system of speculative philosophy, known as process philosophy, in which the various elements of reality into a consistent relation to each other. It is also an exploration of some of the preeminent thinkers of the (...) seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Descartes, Newton, Locke, and Kant. The ultimate edition of Whitehead’s magnum opus, Process and Reality is a standard reference for scholars of all backgrounds. (shrink)

_Requiem for the Ego_ recounts Freud's last great attempt to 'save' the autonomy of the ego, which drew philosophical criticism from the most prominent philosophers of the period—Adorno, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein. Despite their divergent orientations, each contested the ego's capacity to represent mental states through word and symbol to an agent surveying its own cognizance. By discarding the subject-object divide as a model of the mind, they dethroned Freud's depiction of the ego as a conceit of a misleading self-consciousness and (...) a faulty metaphysics. Freud's inquisitors, while employing divergent arguments, found unacknowledged consensus in identifying the core philosophical challenges of defining agency and describing subjectivity. In _Requiem_, Tauber uniquely synthesizes these philosophical attacks against psychoanalysis and, more generally, provides a kaleidoscopic portrait of the major developments in mid-20th century philosophy that prepared the conceptual grounding for postmodernism. (shrink)

What did you do a moment ago? What will you do after you read this? Are you deciding as we speak, or is something else going on in your brain or elsewhere in your body that is determining your actions? Stopping to think this way can freeze us in our tracks. A lot in the world feels far beyond our control--the last thing we need is to question whether we make our own choices in the way we usually assume we (...) do. Questions about free will are so major and consequential that we may prefer not to think about them at all, lest we feel completely lost and unsure of everything we thought we knew! Free Will: An Opinionated Guide offers a clear and straightforward introduction to this vexing topic. Drawing on decades of extensive research in philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology, internationally recognized authority on free will Alfred R. Mele explains and explores the most prominent theories, puzzles, and arguments in free will, all the while presenting his own distinctive take on the topic. like determinism, neuroscience, and control. (shrink)

This article is part of a symposium on Alfred Mele’s Manipulated Agents: A Window to Moral Responsibility. It is Mele’s response to John Fischer, Ishtiyaque Haji, and Michael McKenna. Topics discussed include the bearing of manipulation on moral responsibility, the zygote argument, the importance of scenarios in which manipulators radically reverse an agent’s values, positive versus negative historical requirements for moral responsibility, the scope of moral responsibility, the value of intuitions, bullet-biting, and how we develop from neonates who are (...) not morally responsible for anything into morally responsible agents. A variety of scenarios featuring various kinds of manipulation are discussed. (shrink)

Taylor Cyr offers a novel argument against, as he puts it, “all versions of historicism” about direct moral responsibility. The argument features constitutive luck and a comparison of manipulated agents and young agents performing the first actions for which they are morally responsible. Here it is argued that Cyr’s argument misses its mark. Alfred Mele’s historicism is highlighted.

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

Whereas some philosophers view all reasons for action as psychological states of agents, others—objective favourers theorists—locate the overwhelming majority of reasons for action outside the agent, in items that objectively favour courses of action. (The latter may count such psychological states as a person's belief that demons dance in his kitchen as a reason for him to seek psychiatric help.) This article explores options that objective favourers theorists have regarding cases in which, owing significantly to a false belief, an agent (...) performs an action for which there is no objective favourer. Topics addressed include whether such theorists, including Jonathan Dancy himself, should accept Dancy's thesis that 'intentional, deliberate, purposeful action is always done for a reason' and whether there are two different concepts of reasons for action, one geared to action-evaluation and the other to action-explanation. (shrink)

To decide to A, as I conceive of it, is to perform a momentary mental action of forming an intention to A. I argue that ordinary instances of practical deciding, so conceived, falsify the following...

Ein Mund mit zwei Ohren -- Daniil charms. Es war einmal ein Mensch ; Milieuszene : ein Vaudeville ; Anekdoten aus dem Leben Puškins ; Der Erginder Anton Pavlovič Šilov -- Alles und nichts. Zum Dada-Jahr 2016 -- Welimir Chlebnikow. Beschwörung durch Lachen ; Luftigen Luftold ; Schwarzlieb -- Die Dame aus Arezzo -- Charles Amberg. Ich reiss' mir eine Wimper aus -- Paul Scheerbart. Singende Schlangen -- Kurt Schwitters. Kleines Gedicht für grosse Stotterer -- Zu Haydns "Sieben letzten Worten" (...) -- Musik: Licht und Dunkel! -- "Winterreise" -- Hans Arp. Der Pyramidenrock ; Aus Konstellationen -- Ernst Jandl. Steinbock ; Reihe ; Hünpisch ; Wien: Heldenplatz ; Gemischter Satz -- Mein muikalisches Leben -- Christian Morgenstern. Das grosse Lalula ; Die Geruchs-Orgel ; Das Knie -- Über Humor, Sinn und Unsinn. (shrink)

A concise biography -- The Mishneh Torah -- Maimonides' graeco-islamic philosophical heritage -- The guide of the perplexed: paraphrases and analyses -- Wrestling with language (guide I, introduction and chapters 1-68) -- Paraphrase -- Analysis -- Kalm claims and counterclaims (guide I, chapters 69-76) -- Paraphrase -- Analysis -- Philosophy affirmed and qualified; creation (guide II, introduction -- And chapters 1-31) -- Paraphrase -- Analysis -- Prophecy (guide II, chapters 32-48) -- Paraphrase -- Analysis -- The metaphysics of the Chariot (...) (guide III, introduction and chapters -- 1-7) -- Paraphrase -- Analysis -- Providence and (apparent) evil (guide III, chapters 8-25) -- Paraphrase -- Analysis -- Rationalizing the law (guide III, chapters 26-50) -- Paraphrase -- Analysis -- True knowledge and perfection (guide III, chapters 51-54) -- Paraphrase -- Analysis -- Conclusion. (shrink)

Autonomous Agents addresses the related topics of self-control and individual autonomy. "Self-control" is defined as the opposite of akrasia-weakness of will. The study of self-control seeks to understand the concept of its own terms, followed by an examination of its bearing on one's actions, beliefs, emotions, and personal values. It goes on to consider how a proper understanding of self-control and its manifestations can shed light on personal autonomy and autonomous behaviour. Perspicuous, objective, and incisive throughout, Alfred Mele makes (...) a convincing case for the value of individual autonomy. (shrink)

Beginning in September of 1924, Alfred North Whitehead presented a regular course of 85 lectures which concluded in May of 1925. These represent the first ever philosophy lectures he gave and capture him working out the philosophical implications of the remarkable turns physics had taken in his lifetime. This volume finally recreates these lectures by transcribing notes by W.P. Bell, W.E. Hocking and Louise Heath taken at the time - many of which have only recently been discovered and including (...) hundreds of sketches of Whitehead's blackboard diagrams. This is a unique insight into the evolution of Whitehead's thought during the months when he was drafting his seminal work, Science and the Modern World. (shrink)

Engaging in environmental stewardship is critical for sustainability. Understanding individual differences and engagement is an important gap in present scholarship and addressing it is necessary to understand individual factors that relate to the types of activities engaged in, motivations and barriers to environmental stewardship. We surveyed 637 Canadian and American adults via Amazon Mechanical Turk, querying a range of demographic, psychological and environmental perceptions factors as well as motivations and barriers to stewardship activities. Respondents were ultimately grouped into Non-Stewards, Home-Oriented (...) Stewards and Community-Oriented Stewards. Few differences were found among these groups. However, Home-Oriented Stewards and Community-Oriented Stewards exhibited very different initial and ongoing motivations to engage in environmental stewardship. Accordingly, we identify stewardship motivations as a potential leverage point and as one of several promising avenues for future research related to enhancing engagement in environmental stewardship for the sustainability of the planet. (shrink)

This précis kicks off an invited symposium on Alfred R. Mele.

Advancements in computing, instrumentation, robotics, digital imaging, and simulation modeling have changed science into a technology-driven institution. Government, industry, and society increasingly exert their influence over science, raising questions of values and objectivity. These and other profound changes have led many to speculate that we are in the midst of an epochal break in scientific history. -/- This edited volume presents an in-depth examination of these issues from philosophical, historical, social, and cultural perspectives. It offers arguments both for and against (...) the epochal break thesis in light of historical antecedents. Contributors discuss topics such as: science as a continuing epistemological enterprise; the decline of the individual scientist and the rise of communities; the intertwining of scientific and technological needs; links to prior practices and ways of thinking; the alleged divide between mode-1 and mode-2 research methods; the commodification of university science; and the shift from the scientific to a technological enterprise. Additionally, they examine the epochal break thesis using specific examples, including the transition from laboratory to real world experiments; the increased reliance on computer imaging; how analog and digital technologies condition behaviors that shape the object and beholder; the cultural significance of humanoid robots; the erosion of scientific quality in experimentation; and the effect of computers on prediction at the expense of explanation. -/- Whether these events represent a historic break in scientific theory, practice, and methodology is disputed. What they do offer is an important occasion for philosophical analysis of the epistemic, institutional and moral questions affecting current and future scientific pursuits. (shrink)

Mele develops a view of paradigmatically free actions--including decisions--as indeterministically caused by their proximal causes. He mounts a masterful defense of this thesis that includes solutions to problems about luck and control widely discussed in the literature on free will and moral responsibility.

Mele's chapter addresses two primary aims. The first is to develop an experimentally useful conception of conscious deciding. The second is to challenge a certain source of skepticism about free will: the belief that conscious decisions and intentions are never involved in producing corresponding overt actions. The challenge Mele develops has a positive dimension that accords with the aims of this volume: It sheds light on a way in which some conscious decisions and intentions do seem to be efficacious.

Bahle, 13, 25 n. 1. Ballinger, 108 n. 3. Borchard, 58 n. 1. Burckhardt, 16 n. 1. Bardach, 495. Bnrgeaa, 611. Buridan, 256*. ...

Wie verhalten sich Geist und Leben in unserem menschlichen Dasein zueinander? Ist der Geist des Lebens Feind? Ausgehend von den philosophischen Ansätzen von Ludwig Klages (1872–1956) und Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) diskutiert Alfred Rohloff die Frage nach dem Verhältnis von Geist und Leben in unserer menschlichen Wirklichkeit wie auch, vor diesem Hintergrund, die Möglichkeit einer zivilen Weltgesellschaft, die sich in seinen Augen als die einzig mögliche Antwort ergibt auf die Frage nach der Überlebenschance der Menschheit auf diesem Planeten. Die Diskussion (...) um die Friedfertigkeit einer solchen Weltgesellschaft mündet zuletzt in dem Vorschlag eines Konkordats der Weltreligionen. (shrink)

This article addresses two influential lines of argument for what might be termed “scientific epiphenomenalism” about conscious intentions – the thesis that neither conscious intentions nor their physical correlates are among the causes of bodily motions – and links this thesis to skepticism about free will and moral responsibility. One line of argument is based on Benjamin Libet’s neuroscientific work on free will. The other is based on a mixed bag of findings presented by social psychologist Daniel Wegner. It is (...) argued that both lines of argument are unsuccessful. (shrink)

When faced with uncertainty, consequentialists often advocate choosing the option with the largest expected utility, as calculated using the arithmetic average. I provide some arguments to suggest that instead, one should consider choosing the option with the largest geometric average of utility. I explore the difference between these two approaches in a variety of ethical dilemmas and argue that geometric averaging has some appealing properties as a normative decision-making tool.