Machery et al.’s 2004 x-phi project has been widely criticised for ambiguities contained in the expression ‘talk about’. Interestingly, although ‘about’ plays a prominent part in the debate, aboutness has not been a topic. This paper discusses this aspect. Alas, it must thereby add a further ambiguity to the list, the ambiguity between aboutness and reference, and thus also between subject matter and referent. It explains the distinction between intra-categorical aboutness which makes no ontological demands, and cross-categorical reference which requires (...) the referent to exist. It then analyses the 4-fold embedding contained in Machery et al.’s study and shows how the aboutness-reference distinction bears on it. (shrink)

This paper attempts a conceptualisation of authority intended to be useful across all areas where the concept is relevant. It begins by setting off authority against power, on the one hand, and respect, on the other, and then spells out S1’s authority as consisting in S2’s voluntary action performed in the belief that S1 would approve of it. While this definition should hold for authority generally, a distinction is made between three different kinds of authority according to what grounds them: (...) personal, acquired and bestowed authority. Authority thus defined is then used as an example to argue that there is a kind of property that is response-dependent , but, consisting in all and only a response, is ontologically different from both secondary qualities and value judgments. While secondary qualities are interactive in that they depend on both the object and the perceiver and on what they are like, genuinely R-D qualities depend ontologically and metaphysically only on the responder. And whil.. (shrink)

Editors' preface to the book symposium on Michael Ayers' Knowing and Seeing. Groundwork for a New Empiricism (OUP 2019).

In her ‘Spracherwerb’(2012) Ruth Millikan gives a compelling account of language acquisition based on our ability to track objects. I argue that, and how, it is undermined by her insistence on equating understanding language utterances and sense perception, point to idealist hazards, and plead against propositionality and for imagism in order to safeguard the account’s important potential for giving a comprehensive explication of meaning.

Casey O’Callaghan has argued that rather than hearing meanings, we hear phonemes. In this note I argue that valuable though they are in an account of speech perception – depending on how we define ‘hearing’ – phonemes either don’t explain enough or they go too far. So, they are not the right tool for his criticism of the semantic perceptual account (SPA).

In this article the authors identify and analyse points of agreement and disagreement between Michael Ayers and Charles Travis, starting from their views on ‘things before us’. The authors then try to spell out what separates these philosophers in matters concerning perception, knowledge and language. In spite of their both being self-professed realists, equally critical of conceptualism and representationalism, Ayers’ empiricism and Travis’ anti-empiricism lead them to different positions in these three areas. It is shown that in the case of (...) Ayers they hinge on “ordinary” objects and a KK principle (knowledge that and how we know), whereas in the case of Travis they are articulated around occasion-sensitivity and anti-psychologism. (shrink)

This Critical Notice is about aboutness in logic and language. In a first part, I discuss the origin of the issue and the philosophical background to Yablo's book Aboutness (PUP 2014), which is itself the subject of the second and main part of my paper.

By weakening an inference rule satisfied by logic daC, we define a new paraconsistent logic, which is weaker than logic \ and G′ 3, enjoys properties presented in daC like the substitution theorem, and possesses a strong negation which makes it suitable to express intutionism. Besides, daC ' helps to understand the relationships among other logics, in particular daC, \ and PH1.

As the burden of misconduct in medical research is increasingly recognised, questions have been raised about how best to address this problem. Whilst there are existing mechanisms for the investigation and management of misconduct in medical literature, they are inadequate to deal with the magnitude of the problem. Journal editors and publishers play an essential role in protecting the veracity of the medical literature. Whilst ethical guidance for journal editors and publishers is important, it is not as readily enforceable as (...) legal obligations might be. This article questions the legal obligations that might exist for journal editors and publishing companies with respect to ensuring the veracity of the published literature. Ultimately, there is no enforceable legal obligation in Australia, the United Kingdom, or the United States. In light of this, more robust mechanisms are needed to deliver greater confidence and transparency in the investigative process, the management of concerns or findings of misconduct and the need to cleanse the literature. We show that the law disincentivises journals and publishers from ensuring truth in their publications. There are harmful consequences for medical care and public confidence in the medical profession and health care system when the foundations of medical science are questionable. (shrink)

Both unipolar and bipolar depression have been linked with impairments in executive functioning. In particular, mood symptom severity is associated with differences in common EF, a latent measure of general EF abilities. The relationship between mood disorders and EF is particularly salient in adolescence and young adulthood when the ongoing development of EF intersects with a higher risk of mood disorder onset. However, it remains unclear if common EF impairments have associations with specific symptom dimensions of mood pathology such as (...) blunted positive affect, mood instability, or physiological arousal, or if differences in common EF more broadly relate to what is shared across various symptom domains, such as general negative affect or distress. To address this question, bifactor models can be applied to simultaneously examine the shared and unique contributions of particular mood symptom dimensions. However, no studies to our knowledge have examined bifactor models of mood symptoms in relation to measures of common EF. This study examined associations between common EF and general vs. specific symptom dimensions using structural equation modeling in adolescents and young adults with varying severity of mood symptoms. A General Depression factor capturing shared variance across symptoms statistically predicted lower Common EF. Additionally, a factor specific to physiological arousal was associated with lower Common EF. Anhedonia-specific and Mania-specific factors were not significantly related to Common EF. Altogether, these results indicate that deficits in common EF are driven by, or reflect, general features of mood pathology that are shared across symptom dimensions but are also specifically associated with physiological arousal. (shrink)

Background: Previous research shows that pediatricians inconsistently utilize the ethics consultation service (ECS). Methods: Pediatricians in two suburban, Midwestern academic hospitals were asked to reflect on their ethics training and utilization of ECS via an anonymous, electronic survey distributed in 2017 and 2018, and analyzed in 2018. Participants reported their clinical experience, exposure to formal and informal ethics training, use of formal and informal ethics consultations, and potential barriers to formal consultation. Results: Less experienced pediatricians were more likely to utilize (...) formal ethics consultation and more likely to have formal ethics training. The most commonly reported reasons not to pursue formal ECS consultation were inconvenience and self-reported expertise in pediatric ethics. Conclusions: These results inform ongoing discussions about ethics consultation among pediatricians and the role of formal ethics training in both undergraduate and graduate medical education. (shrink)

Background: This study developed a photo and video database of 4-to-6-year-olds expressing the seven induced and posed universal emotions and a neutral expression. Children participated in photo and video sessions designed to elicit the emotions, and the resulting images were further assessed by independent judges in two rounds. Methods: In the first round, two independent judges, experts in the Facial Action Coding System, firstly analysed 3,668 emotions facial expressions stimuli from 132 children. Both judges reached 100% agreement regarding 1,985 stimuli, (...) which were then selected for a second round of analysis between judges 3 and 4. Results: The result was 1,985 stimuli were produced from 124 participants. A Kappa index of 0.70 and an accuracy of 73% between experts were observed. Lower accuracy was found for emotional expression by 4-year-olds than 6-year-olds. Happiness, disgust and contempt had the highest agreement. After a sub-analysis evaluation of all four judges, 100% agreement was reached for 1,381 stimuli which compound the ChildEFES database with 124 participants and 51% induced photographs. The number of stimuli of each emotion were: 87 for neutrality, 363 for happiness, 170 for disgust, 104 for surprise, 152 for fear, 144 for sadness, 157 for anger 157, and 183 for contempt. Conclusions: The findings show that this photo and video database can facilitate research on the mechanisms involved in early childhood recognition of facial emotions in children, contributing to the understanding of facial emotion recognition deficits which characterise several neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders. (shrink)

v. 1. A-C -- v. 2. D-J -- v. 3. K-Q -- v. 4. R-Z.

John Dewey's writings make a compelling case for the importance of linking school and society and for conceiving education as the development and articulation of lived experience. In recent years, however, a focus on discrete topical learning, along with narrow definitions of achievement, have left us with few good examples of that conception of education. The best examples often represent one-time experiences, or more limited linking of school and society.This article explores an example of what we call community inquiry1, as (...) it has developed within a school and community life. The community's inquiry builds on student experiences and exemplifies integrated curriculum, community-based learning, projects .. (shrink)

Patients with psychiatric illness feel the brunt of the intersection of many of our society's and our health care system's disparities, and the vulnerability of this population during the Covid‐19 pandemic cannot be overstated. Patients with psychiatric illness often suffer from the stigma of mental illness and receive poor medical care. Many patients with severe and persistent mental illness face additional barriers, including poverty, marginal housing, and food insecurity. Patients who require psychiatric hospitalization now face the risk of transmission of (...) Covid‐19 due to the inherent difficulties of social distancing within a psychiatric hospital. Patients whose freedom and self‐determination have been temporarily overruled as they receive involuntary psychiatric treatment deserve a setting that maintains their health and safety. While tele‐mental health has been rapidly expanded to provide new ways to access psychiatric treatment, some patients may have limitations in technological literacy or access to devices. The social isolation, economic fallout, and potential traumatization related to the current pandemic will disproportionately affect this vulnerable population, and society's duties to them must be considered. (shrink)

This handbook presents a comprehensive introduction to the core areas of philosophy of education combined with an up-to-date selection of the central themes. It includes 95 newly commissioned articles that focus on and advance key arguments; each essay incorporates essential background material serving to clarify the history and logic of the relevant topic, examining the status quo of the discipline with respect to the topic, and discussing the possible futures of the field. The book provides a state-of-the-art overview of philosophy (...) of education, covering a range of topics: Voices from the present and the past deals with 36 major figures that philosophers of education rely on; Schools of thought addresses 14 stances including Eastern, Indigenous, and African philosophies of education as well as religiously inspired philosophies of education such as Jewish and Islamic; Revisiting enduring educational debates scrutinizes 25 issues heavily debated in the past and the present, for example care and justice, democracy, and the curriculum; New areas and developments addresses 17 emerging issues that have garnered considerable attention like neuroscience, videogames, and radicalization. The collection is relevant for lecturers teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of education as well as for colleagues in teacher training. Moreover, it helps junior researchers in philosophy of education to situate the problems they are addressing within the wider field of philosophy of education and offers a valuable update for experienced scholars dealing with issues in the sub-discipline. Combined with different conceptions of the purpose of philosophy, it discusses various aspects, using diverse perspectives to do so. Contributing Editors: Section 1: Voices from the Present and the Past: Nuraan Davids Section 2: Schools of Thought: Christiane Thompson and Joris Vlieghe Section 3: Revisiting Enduring Debates: Ann Chinnery, Naomi Hodgson, and Viktor Johansson Section 4: New Areas and Developments: Kai Horsthemke, Dirk Willem Postma, and Claudia Ruitenberg. (shrink)

We examined cynicism as a mediator of the influence of managers’ mission-congruent communication and behavior about ethical standards (a form of supervisory behavioral integrity) on employee attitudes and intended behavior. Results indicated that cynicism partially mediates the relationship between supervisory behavioral integrity and organizational commitment, but not the relationship between supervisory behavioral integrity and intent to comply with organizational expectations for employee conduct.

This study seeks to examine the mechanisms by which a corporation’s use of philanthropy affects its reputation for corporate social performance (CSP), which the authors conceive of as consisting of two dimensions: CSP awareness and CSP perception. Using signal detection theory (SDT), the authors model signal amplitude (the amount contributed), dispersion (number of areas supported), and consistency (presence of a corporate foundation) on CSP awareness and perception. Overall, this study finds that characteristics of firms’ portfolio of philanthropic activities are a (...) greater predictor of CSP awareness than of CSP perception. Awareness increases with signal amplitude, dispersion, and consistency. CSP perception is driven by awareness and corporate reputation. The authors’ contention that corporate philanthropy is a complex variable is upheld, as we find that CSP signal characteristics influence CSP awareness and perception independently and asymmetrically. The authors conclude by proposing avenues for future research. (shrink)

Persuasive technologies for health‐related behaviour change give rise to ethical concerns. As of yet, no study has explicitly attended to ethical concerns arising with the design and use of these technologies for vulnerable people. This is striking because these technologies are designed to help people change their attitudes or behaviours, which is particularly valuable for vulnerable people. Vulnerability is a complex concept that is both an ontological condition of our humanity and highly context‐specific. Using the Mackenzie, Rogers and Dodds’ taxonomy (...) of vulnerability, this paper identifies (a) the wrongs or harms to which a person is vulnerable, (b) the source of this vulnerability, and (c) the safeguards needed in response. Two ethical concerns with the design of persuasive technology for vulnerable people are discussed: the concerns of taking into account users' interests and their autonomy. (shrink)

The theory of cultural evolution proposed by economist Friedrich August von Hayek is without doubt the most harshly criticized component in his highly prolific intellectual corpus. Hayek depicted the emergence of the market order as the unintended consequence of an evolutionary process in which groups whose rules of behavior led to a comparative increase in population and wealth were favored over others. Key to Hayek’s theory was the claim that the rules of the market, on which modern civilization relies, evolved (...) at the meta-individual level and therefore surpass human reason. Hayek believed that his theory provided scientific explanation for the superiority of the market order over rational planning. In this article, I conduct a selective comparison between Hayek’s and Darwin’s theories of cultural group selection and analyze the role that demographic growth and reason play in their respective accounts. I first present Hayek’s theory of cultural group selection, its sources of inspiration, and its important place in his intellectual legacy. I then compare Hayek’s claims to Darwin’s views and highlight fundamental differences in their evaluation of the role of reason in moral evolution. Finally, I offer some comments concerning the place assigned to demographic growth in Hayek’s theory and his over-reliance on economics in explaining cultural evolution. (shrink)

La Bosnie, province ottomane, devenue territoire de l’Empire austro-hongrois en 1878, est devenue une région du Royaume des Serbes, Croates et Slovènes après la Première Guerre mondiale (lui-même devenu le Royaume yougoslave en 1929). Ce territoire n’a pas cessé de changer de statut, de passer d’empire en empire, avant d’acquérir l’autonomie politique. Malgré ces ruptures successives, l’historiographie avait tendance à privilégier un récit où la vie des femmes bosniaques musulmanes n’aurait c...

Isaiah Berlin and Stuart Hampshire's early engagements with logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy are examined as historical and philosophical reference points for locating an alternative – interpretive and humanist – tradition that developed within analytic philosophy at Oxford in the 20th C. Berlin and Hampshire's writings show the legacy of an enduring Idealist philosophy, one that nonetheless had to be revised and reinvented against the new empiricist challenges brought on by the rise of analytic philosophy. Berlin and Hampshire rejected (...) idealism's metaphysical pretensions of the Absolute in favor of the new empiricism's insistence on grounding philosophy in experience, but staunchly opposed applying the latter's narrowly ‘scientistic’ view of knowledge to human experience, re-affirming the indivisible connections between epistemological issues and moral and political issues. The idealist themes they expounded are most clearly evident in their arguments for an interpretive philosophy in opposition to the reductivist tendencies of logical positivism, and in their defense of humanist liberalism against the drive of analysis toward naturalism where inquiry into human life is concerned. Such themes include: (i) an anti-naturalist, vitalist, philosophy of human sciences, (ii) an insistence on the intrinsic force and importance of human values against moral relativism, and (iii) the recognition of the political significance of the plurality of human values. As such, Berlin and Hampshire reveal the strong interpretive and humanist ways of reasoning from within the analytic tradition itself. Moreover, these interpretive and humanist themes continue to have strong echoes, this paper argues, in the development of post-analytic political theory in the latter half of the 20th century through today, as further evinced in the ideas of Bernard Williams (1929–2003) and Charles Taylor (b. 1931). By calling attention to such continuities, this paper reveals how moral and political philosophy in the Anglophone world lay not moribund but continued to develop in the heyday of analytic philosophy from the late ‘30s to the ‘50s and onward, thereby challenging the commonplace of the ‘death’ of normative political theorizing until Rawls reinvigorated it in the ‘70s. ☆ Special thanks are owed to Amy McCready, an astute reader of a preliminary draft of this paper. Also, the fearless members of the Contemporary Histories of Political Theory Working Group and participants of the Post-Analytic Political Theory Workshop at University of California, Berkeley provided useful insights and even more useful criticisms. (shrink)

Wittgenstein formulates the paradox of gestalt switches thus: ‘What is incomprehensible is that nothing, and yet everything has changed, after all. That is the only way to put it’. In the course of isolating what I take to be the best of the various solutions to the paradox explored by Wittgenstein, the following claims are defended: (a) A significant strand in Wittgenstein’s own formulation of, and solution to, the paradox can best be understood as a response to three specific claims (...) made by the Gestalt psychologist Kohler. (b) The most promising avenue Wittgenstein explored in his many attempts to resolve the paradox gives perceptual attention a constitutive role in the solution (c) This role is best elaborated, partially, by appeal to information processing theories of attention. (d) There are good reasons to think that the kind of solution to the paradox this yields would have been welcomed by Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Empathy is a subject that thinkers, writers, and scientists—from ancient playwrights to social scientists and biologists, and today even our ethicists on artificial intelligence—have attempted to c...

In 2016, Béziau introduced the notion of genuine paraconsistent logic as logic that does not verify the principle of non-contradiction; as an important example, he presented the genuine paraconsist...

‘Like the shadow of one’s own head, [the referent of one’s ‘I’ thoughts] will not wait to be jumped on. And yet it is never very far ahead; indeed, sometimes it does not seem to be ahead of the pursuer at all. It evades capture by lodging itself in the very inside of the muscles of the pursuer. It is too near even to be within arm’s reach.’(C of M 177-89).

The field of moral psychology has been confined to the study of social morality, resulting in a nearly exclusive focus on the primary other-regarding virtue of justice. It is argued that an understanding of personal morality, with its concern with self-regarding virtues and the dynamics of intimate relationships, is needed to complement this approach. The importance of personal morality issues to moral psychology is foreshadowed in C. Gilligan's caring ethic. This article expands on Gilligan's schematic portrayal to provide a more (...) complete theoretical understanding of personal morality. Social and personal morality are contrasted to highlight their differences and interrelatedness. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

El autor nos entrega en este artículo cuatro fábulas místicas que han configurado la espiritualidad bizantina primitiva, considerando tanto la mística greco-bizantina de los siglos II al V, como, lo “la fase ascendente” que se extiende desde el siglo VI al X, siendo éstas la Fábula Antoniana, la de Evagrio Pontico, la de la Escala Espiritual de Juan Climaco y la de los Santos Locos. Concluye el artículo señalando que la espiritualidad bizantina primitiva se configuró como una “espiritualidad del corazón", (...) en tanto los malos pensamientos vienen desde fuera del corazón, de los demonios, que acechan el corazón del hombre. (shrink)

Empathy is a subject that thinkers, writers, and scientists—from ancient playwrights to social scientists and biologists, and today even our ethicists on artificial intelligence—have attempted to c...

In Insister – À Jacques Derrida Cixous declares that she will have to write ‘the book of words’, among which ‘words of power’ will be vermögen (to be able), together with Unvermöglickeit (impossibility), and tragen (to carry), along with austragen (to bear to term) and übertragen (to transfer, translate, also in the sense of metaphor). By examining Derrida's reading of Cixous in H. C. pour la vie, c'est à dire … this article deepens the association of tragen with life and (...) power that fascinates Derrida in the second year of his final seminar where he tracks a thread between Austrag, Walten, Trieb, and Vermögen. Its point of departure is a passage towards the end of H. C. pour la vie where Derrida speaks of the trap of metalanguage or, rather, metaphrasis that lurks in the c’est of c'est à dire. I link this passage both to the discussion of metaphorization in the earlier ‘Le puits et la pyramide’ and the characterization of puisse as ‘the exhaustion [ l'épuisement] of the sun before its time’ in the essay on Cixous to associate puissance with the wearing-out of the world and its usure in the double sense elaborated in ‘La mythologie blanche’. (shrink)

Despite changes in their representation and visibility, there are still serious concerns about the inclusion and day-to-day workplace challenges various groups face (e.g., women, ethnic and cultural minorities, LGBTQ+, people as they age, and those dealing with physical or mental disabilities). Men are also underrepresented in specific work fields, in particular those in HEED (Health care, Elementary Education and the Domestic sphere). Previous literature has shown that group stereotypes play an important role in maintaining these inequalities. We outline how insights (...) from research on stigma, social-identity, and self-regulation together increase our understanding of how targets are affected by and regulate negative stereotypes in the workplace. This approach starts from the basis that members of negatively-stereotyped groups are not just passive recipients of negative attitudes, stereotypes, and behaviors, but are active individuals pursuing multiple goals, such as goals for belonging and achievement. We argue that it is only by understanding stigma from the target’s perspective (e.g., how targets are affected and respond) that we can successfully address workplace inequality. Key in this understanding is that stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination have taken on much more subtle forms, with consequences for the way members of stigmatized-groups cope. These insights lead us to propose an approach to understanding barriers to workplace equality that highlights four key aspects: a) the different (often subtle) potential triggers of identity-threat in the workplace for members of stigmatized-groups, b) the ways in which members of stigmatized-groups cope with these threats, c) the role of supportive factors that mitigate potential threats and affect self-regulation, and d) potential hidden costs for the self or others of what appears at first to be effective self-regulation. The focus on threats, coping, support, and potential hidden costs helps us understand why current diversity efforts are not always successful in increasing and maintaining members of stigmatized-groups in organizations, and provides insight into how we can aid efforts to effectively lower barriers to workplace equality. (shrink)

Paul C. Taylor provides an accessible guide to a well-travelled but still-mysterious area of the contemporary social landscape. The result is the first philosophical introduction to the field of race theory and to a non-biological and situational notion of race. Provides the first philosophical introduction to the field of race theory. Outlines the main features and implications of race-thinking; asks questions such as: What is race-thinking? Don’t we know better than to talk about race now? Are there any races? What (...) is it like to have a racial identity? Engages with the ideas of such important figures as Linda Alcoff, K. Anthony Appiah, W.E.B. Du Bois, Howard Winant, and Naomi Zack. Explores the enduring significance of race in relation to culture, personal relationships and social justice. (shrink)

In a recent Target Article Naomi Scheinerman (2023a) has offered an important and compelling call to institutionalize popular participation for heritable genome engineering through the inclusion of...

Are doctors right when they tell us vaccines are safe? Should we take climate experts at their word when they warn us about the perils of global warming? Why should we trust science when so many of our political leaders don't? Naomi Oreskes offers a bold and compelling defense of science, revealing why the social character of scientific knowledge is its greatest strength--and the greatest reason we can trust it. Tracing the history and philosophy of science from the late (...) nineteenth century to today, this timely and provocative book features a new preface by Oreskes and critical responses by climate experts Ottmar Edenhofer and Martin Kowarsch, political scientist Jon Krosnick, philosopher of science Marc Lange, and science historian Susan Lindee, as well as a foreword by political theorist Stephen Macedo. (shrink)

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.