The chapter discusses the issue of how we may achieve knowledge of essence. It offers a critical survey of the main theories of knowledge of essence that have been proposed within contemporary debates, particularly by Lowe, Hale, Oderberg, Elder, and Kment.

I propose that we approach the epistemology of modality by putting modal metaphysics first and, specifically, by investigating the metaphysics of essence. Following a prominent Neo-Aristotelian view, I hold that metaphysical necessity depends on the nature of things, namely their essences. I further clarify that essences are core properties having distinctive superexplanatory powers. In the case of natural kinds, which is my focus in the paper, superexplanatoriness is due to the fact that the essence of a kind is what causes (...) all the many properties and behaviors that are typically shared by all the instances of the kind. Accordingly, we know what is necessarily true of kinds by knowing what is essential to them in the sense of actually playing such causal-explanatory roles. Modal reasoning aimed at discovering metaphysical necessity thus proceeds via essentialist deduction: we move from essentialist truths to reach necessary truths. (shrink)

I discuss several problems for Williamson’s counterfactual-theory of modal knowledge and argue that they have a common source, in that the theory neglects to elucidate the proper constraints on modal reasoning. Williamson puts forward an empirical hypothesis that rests on the role of counterfactual reasoning for modal knowledge. But he overlooks central questions of normative modal epistemology. In order for counterfactual reasoning to yield correct beliefs about modality, it needs to be suitably constrained. I argue that what is needed is, (...) specifically, information concerning the nature or essence of things. By integrating this information, essentialist deduction arguably provides a better account of our knowledge of modality. Furthermore, I argue that essences have distinctive causal and explanatory powers—indeed, essences are superexplanatory for how things are. Compared to Williamson’s counterfactual-theory, superexplanatory essentialism clarifies what the proper constraints on modal reasoning are, and why they have such a special status. (shrink)

The paper explores the project of an ambitious modal epistemology that attempts to combine the a priori methods of Chalmers’ 2D semantics with Kripke’s modal metaphysics. I argue that such a project is not viable. The ambitious modal epistemology involves an inconsistent triad composed of (1) Modal Monism, (2) Two-Dimensionalism, and what I call (3) “Metaphysical Kripkeanism”. I present the three theses and show how only two of those can be true at a time. There is a fundamental incompatibility between (...) Chalmers’ Modal Rationalism and Kripke’s modal metaphysics. Specifically, Chalmers’ conceivability entails possibilities that a Kripkean rejects as genuinely metaphysical. However, three positive stances in modal epistemology emerge from the combinations that the triad allows. One of those offers a promising way forward for 2D modal epistemologies. But it comes with a cost, as it requires abandoning modal monism and reshaping the scope of what a priori conceivability can give us access to. (shrink)

Is imagination a source of knowledge? Timothy Williamson has recently argued that our imaginative capacities can yield knowledge of a variety of matters, spanning from everyday practical matters to logic and set theory. Furthermore, imagination for Williamson plays a similar epistemic role in cognitive processes that we would traditionally classify as either a priori or a posteriori, which he takes to indicate that the distinction itself is shallow and epistemologically fruitless. In this chapter, I aim to defend the a priori-a (...) posteriori distinction from Williamson’s challenge by questioning his account of imagination. I distinguish two notions of imagination at play in Williamson’s account – sensory vs. belief-like imagination – and show that both face empirical and normative issues. Sensory imagination seems neither necessary nor sufficient for knowledge. Whereas, belief-like imagination isn’t adequately disentangled from inference. Additionally, Williamson’s examples are ad hoc and don’t generalize. I conclude that Williamson’s case against the a priori-a posteriori distinction is unconvincing, and so is the thesis that imagination is an epistemic source. (shrink)

Talk of metaphysical modality as “absolute” is ambiguous, as it appears to convey multiple ideas. Metaphysical possibility is supposedly completely unrestricted or unqualified; metaphysical necessity is unconditional and exceptionless. Moreover, metaphysical modality is thought to be absolute in the sense that it’s real or genuine and the most objective modality: metaphysical possibility and necessity capture ways things could and must have really been. As we disentangle these ideas, certain talk of metaphysical modality qua “absolute” turns out to be misguided. Metaphysical (...) possibility isn't completely unrestricted or most inclusive compared to the other modalities; metaphysical necessity, like all kinds of necessities, is relative to or conditional upon a specific framework of reference. Still, metaphysical modality captures how things could and must have really been most generally because it deals with reality and the nature of things or their essence. That’s the chief interest of metaphysics. Arguments against the alleged absoluteness of metaphysical modality may not thereby undermine its philosophical significance. (shrink)

The fourteen papers in this collection offer a variety of original contributions to the epistemology of modality. In seeking to explain how we might account for our knowledge of possibility and necessity, they raise some novel questions, develop some unfamiliar theoretical perspectives, and make some intriguing proposals. Collectively, they advance our understanding of the field. In Part I of this Introduction, I give some general background about the contemporary literature in the area, by sketching a timeline of the main tendencies (...) of the past twenty-five years or so, up to the present debates. Next, I focus on four features that largely characterize the latest literature, and the papers in the present collection in particular: (i) an endorsement of the importance of essentialism; (ii) a shift to a “metaphysics-first” approach to modal epistemology; (iii) a focus on metaphysical modality as opposed to other kinds of modality; and (iv) a preference for non-uniform modal epistemology. In Part II, I present the individual papers in the volume. These are organized around the following four chapters, based on their topic: (A) Skepticism & Deflationism; (B) Essentialism; (C) Non-Essentialist Accounts; (D) Applications. -/- LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS: Francesco Berto; Stephen Biggs & Jessica Wilson; Justin Clark-Doane; Philip Goff; Bob Hale; Frank Jackson; Mark Jago; Boris Kment; Antonella Mallozzi; Graham Priest; Gabriel Rabin; Amie Thomasson; Anand Vaidya & Michael Wallner; Jennifer Wang. -/- The volume is dedicated to the memory of Bob Hale. -/- . (shrink)

Temporal binding is the phenomenon in which events related as cause and effect are perceived by humans to be closer in time than they actually are). Despite the fact that temporal binding experiments with humans have relied on verbal instructions, we argue that they are adaptable to nonhuman animals, and that a finding of temporal binding from such experiments would provide evidence of causal reasoning that cannot be reduced to associative learning. Our argument depends on describing and theoretically motivating an (...) intermediate level of representations between the lower levels of associations of sensory features and higher symbolic representations. This intermediate level of representations makes it possible to challenge arguments given by some comparative psychologists that animals lack higher-level abstract and explicit forms of causal reasoning because their cognitive capacities are limited to learning and reasoning at the basic level of perceptual associations. Our multi-level account connects time perception with causal reasoning and provides a philosophically defensible framework for experimental investigations that have not yet been pursued. We describe the structure of some possible experiments and consider the implications that would follow from a positive finding of temporal binding in nonhuman animals. Such a finding would provide evidence of explicit awareness of causal relationships and would warrant attribution of intermediate representations that are more abstract and sophisticated than the associations allowed by the lower level of the two-level account. (shrink)

_Treating Dissociative and Personality Disorders_ draws on major theorists and the very latest research to help formulate and introduce the Relational/Multi-Motivational Therapeutic Approach, a new model for treating such patients within a clinical psychoanalytic setting. Supported by her fellow contributors, Antonella Ivaldi provides an overview of existing theories and evidence for their effectiveness in practice, sets out her own theory in detail and provides rich clinical detail to demonstrate the advantages of the REMOTA model as applied in a clinical (...) setting. The narratives in this book show how it is possible to integrate different contributions within a multidimensional aetiopathogenic treatment model, which considers the mind as a manifestation of the relationship between body and world. From a conceptual perspective, according to which consciousness emerges and develops in the interpersonal dimension, this book shows how it becomes possible to understand, in the therapeutic space, what stands in the way of sound personal functioning, and how to create the conditions for improving this. Treating Dissociative and Personality Disorders will be highly useful in addressing the particular clusters of symptoms presented by patients, stimulating therapists of different backgrounds to explore the complexity of human nature. On reading this book, it will become clear that theories can truly become useful instruments, if approached with a critical mind and with humbleness, in order to venture into what we do not know and will never know completely: the relationship with the other, unique and irreplaceable. Treating Dissociative and Personality Disorders provides an integrative and comparative new approach that will be indispensable for combining relational clinical knowing and motivational theories. It_ _will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, especially those in training, clinicians of different backgrounds interested in comparative psychotherapy, as well as social workers and graduate and postgraduate students. (shrink)

SummaryThis study focuses on the cultural and political context from which stemmed the French translation of the British Merchant. The paratextual and macrostructural interventions that characterised Le négotiant anglois clearly demonstrate that the translator, Véron de Forbonnais, used his work to set out his own epistemological method and his way of looking at inter-state relations. With the book, Forbonnais had distanced himself from Gournay by rejecting the idea that in order for France to prosper in a situation of international competition (...) the government needed to adopt a muscular strategy that included the adoption of a navigation act modelled on the one enacted by Britain in 1660. At the same time, Forbonnais warned French decision-makers that signing commercial treaties with the maritime powers might also be prejudicial to national economic interests. Forbonnais supplied qualified French readers not only with an annotated edition of the British Merchant but also with a translation of Davenant's Of the Use of Political Arithmetick. In so doing, he proposed to his audience a type of governance based on a competent use of statistics. In conclusion, I will argue that in Le négotiant anglois Forbonnais anticipated the key political and economical tenets of his project of ‘monarchie commerçante’, which he later set out in the Principes et observations æconomiques in order to counter the rise of the epistemology and plans for a ‘royaume agricole’ put forward by the physiocratic movement. (shrink)

This paper reports two studies investigating the role of culture on the design and personalisation of virtual spaces. The first study was a systematic analysis of 60 MSN virtual spaces belonging to British and Chinese students. The analysis concentrated on design patterns and communication style. The second study was an on-line survey designed to compare the relative importance of cultural values and personality traits on self-reported behaviour with, and preferences for, virtual space design. Results highlighted the importance of culture on (...) design and communication in virtual spaces. Implications for interaction design are discussed. (shrink)

In this paper, we distinguish between a number of different phenomena that have been called imitation, and identify one form—a high fidelity mechanism for social learning—considered to be crucial for the development of language. Subsequently, we consider a common claim in the language evolution literature, which is that prior to the emergence of vocal language our ancestors communicated using a sophisticated gestural protolanguage, the learning of some parts of which required manual imitation. Drawing upon evidence from recent work in neuroscience, (...) primatology, and archeology, we argue that while gestural communication undoubtedly played a crucial role in language evolution, the grounds for thinking that manual imitation did are currently unconvincing. (shrink)

Experiencia es la palabra que señala cómo piensa Hegel en su metafísica absoluta el ser del ente. Heidegger, al comentar la «Introducción» a la Fenomenología del espíritu ilumina el concepto hegeliano de experiencia a la luz del tono originario de la palabra Erfahrung. El término indica el ser de la conciencia absoluta en su carácter fundamental del movimiento. Al tiempo que muestra a Hegel como el pensador de lo aboluto, encuentra en la Erfahrung un motivo positivo de afinidad con él.

Epstein et al.'s “full access to Universal Grammar” position is conceptually and empirically problematic. Its shortcomings are illustrated through a brief discussion of the following issues: (1) initial versus final states of grammatical knowledge in a second language, (2) knowledge of gradience of grainmaticality, (3) optionality and retention in non-native grammars, and (4) the empirical measurement of syntactic knowledge.

In the current opinion paper, we provide a comparative perspective on specific aspects of primate empathic abilities, with particular emphasis on the mirror neuron system associated with mouth/face actions and expression. Mouth and faces can be very salient communicative classes of stimuli that allow an observer access to the emotional and physiological content of other individuals. We thus describe patterns of activations of neural populations related to observation and execution of specific mouth actions and emotional facial expressions in some species (...) of monkeys and in humans. Particular attention is given to dynamics of face-to-face interactions in the early phases of development and to the differences in the anatomy of facial muscles among different species of primates. We hypothesize that increased complexity in social environments and patterns of social development have promoted specializations of facial musculature, behavioral repertoires related to production and recognition of facial emotional expression, and their neural correlates. In several primates, mirror circuits involving parietal-frontal regions, insular regions, cingulate cortices, and amygdala seem to support automatic forms of embodied empathy, which probably contribute to facial mimicry and behavioural synchrony. In humans these circuits interact with specific prefrontal and temporo-parietal cortical regions, which facilitates higher order cognitive functions such as cognitive empathy and mental state attribution. Our analysis thus suggests that the evolution of higher forms of empathy, such as mentalizing, is also linked to the coupling between the perceptual and motor system related to face processing, which may have undergone a process of exaptation during primate phylogeny. (shrink)

Irrational debt decisions at the individual level may harm collective welfare. For this reason, regulators are committed to encourage information-based behaviours in order to enhance likelihood of appropriate indebtedness. We analyse, with a diff-in-diff estimator, the Italian case offered by the Legislative Decree that reformed the consumer credit market adopting European Directive 2008/48/ec, and that reinforced the mandatory information acquisition, jointly asked to lenders and borrowers, before granting/receiving consumer credit. By using micro-data on 60.000 consumer credit borrowers, in total, randomly (...) sampled from the most relevant Italian Credit Bureau, our findings support that, in the medium term, the new consumer credit regulation has improved borrowers’ repayment ability, enhancing the quality of credit distribution. Nevertheless, a simplistic ‘better information-better behaviour’ relationship cannot be assured. This success is likely due to conjunct adaptation of behaviours, with shared responsibilities experienced on both the demand and offer side of the consumer credit marketplace. (shrink)

The changes and general alarm of the current COVID-19 pandemic have amplified the sense of precariousness and vulnerability for family members who, in addition to the emotional trauma of the cancer diagnosis, add the distress and fear of the risks associated with infection. The primary objectives of the present study were to investigate the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the parents of pediatric cancer patients, and the level of stress, anxiety, and the child’s quality of life perceived by (...) the parents during the COVID-19 epidemic. The parents of 45 consecutive children with solid and hematological tumors were enrolled. Four questionnaires were administered to the parents at the beginning of the pandemic lockdown. A 75% of parents exhibited remarkable levels of anxiety, with 60 subjects in state scale and 45 subjects in trait scale having scores that reached and exceeded the STAI-Y cut off. The bivariate matrix of correlation found a significant positive correlation between the IES-R and PSS scores. There was a positive correlation between the PSS and PedsQL scale and a negative correlation between IES-R and STAI-Y. The results confirm that parents of pediatric cancer patients have a high psychological risk for post-traumatic symptoms, high stress levels, and the presence of clinically significant levels of anxiety. (shrink)