Because it consists of an entire family of specific theories derived from the same first principles, rational choice offers one approach to generate explanations that provide for micro-macro links, and to attack a wide variety of empirical problems in macrosociology. The aims of this paper are (1) to provide a bare skeleton of all rational choice arguments; (2) to demonstrate their applicability to a range of macrosociological concerns by reviewing a sample of both new and classic works; and (3) to (...) discuss the weaknesses of current rational choice theory and the possibilities for its future development. (shrink)

What makes the question of grandparental investment so very interesting is trying to tease out the underlying motivations. Grandparental investment is variable and grandparental altruism, if it exists at all, is also variable. Neither evolutionary theory nor rational choice theory has an easy time explaining this variation, and insight is further impeded by the absence of any compelling empirical studies designed for the purpose of testing alternative explanations of variations in grandparental investment.

_Business Ethics: The Big Picture_ asks students to focus on the assumptions underlying the activity of business. Why does society provide special protections for businesses? What is the purpose of a corporation? What do businesses owe society? And are there some things that shouldn’t be distributed by the free market? These questions are addressed through classic readings from such central figures as Adam Smith and Karl Marx, in addition to contemporary selections from Milton Friedman, R. Edward Freeman, Debra (...) Satz, and others. A number of compelling real-world case studies are also included. (shrink)

This volume brings together a diverse range of perspectives reflecting the international appeal and multi-disciplinary interest that Oakeshott now attracts. The essays offer a variety of approaches to Oakeshott’s thought — testament to the abiding depth, originality, suggestiveness and complexity of his writings. The essays include contributions from well-known Oakeshott scholars along with ample representation from a new generation. As a collection these essays challenge Oakeshott’s reputation as merely a ‘critic of social planning’.Contributors include Josiah Lee Auspitz, Debra Candreva, (...) Wendell John Coats Jr., Douglas DenUyl, George Feaver, Paul Franco, Richard Friedman, Timothy Fuller, Robert Grant, Eric S. Kos, Leslie Marsh, Kenneth Minogue, Terry Nardin, Keith Sutherland, Martyn Thompson and Gerhard Wolmarans. (shrink)

A basic problem of daily life is determining who owns what. One way that people may solve this problem is by relying on a ‘first possession’ heuristic, according to which the first person who possesses an object is its owner, even if others subsequently possess the object. We investigated preschoolers’ use of this heuristic in five experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, 3- and 4-year-olds inferred that an object was owned by the character who possessed it first, even though another (...) character subsequently possessed it. Two-year-olds also showed this bias, but only when the object was placed between the characters when children were asked about ownership. Experiment 3 ruled out the possibility that children’s bias to select the first possessor results from a tendency to select the character first associated with the object. Experiment 4 showed that 3- and 4-year-olds have difficulty disregarding the first possession heuristic, even when provided with evidence that the character who first possessed an object is not its owner. But Experiment 5 found that children can disregard the heuristic in at least some situations. These five experiments suggest that the first possession heuristic guides children’s ownership inferences. The findings provide the first evidence that preschoolers can infer who owns what, when not explicitly told, and when not reasoning about objects with which they are personally acquainted. (shrink)

One of the most interesting aspects of McDowell’s very interesting book is the way in which it locates the problems of late-twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy within the historical development of the Western philosophical tradition. Beginning with an opposition between Coherentism and the Myth of the Given exemplified in recent work of Donald Davidson’s, McDowell proceeds to frame his discussion in terms of the Kantian distinction between concepts and intuitions, understanding and sensibility, spontaneity and receptivity. McDowell’s basic idea is that we can (...) satisfactorily overcome the opposition between Coherentism and the Myth of the Given only by recognizing, with Kant, that concepts and intuitions, understanding and sensibility, must be integrated together in every cognitive act or process—even in the mere intake of experiential content characteristic of sense perception. There is thus no room, according to McDowell, for either unconceptualized sensory input standing in no rational relation to conceptual thought or purely intellectual thought operating independently of all rational constraint from sense experience. (shrink)

In the Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason Kant formulates what he calls “the general problem of pure reason,” namely, “How are synthetic a priori judgements possible?” Kant explains that this general problem involves two more specific questions about particular a priori sciences: “How is pure mathematics possible?” and “How is pure natural science possible?”— where the first concerns, above all, the possibility of Euclidean geometry, and the second concerns the possibility of fundamental laws of Newtonian mechanics such as (...) conservation of mass, inertia, and the equality of action and reaction. In answering these questions Kant develops what he calls a “transcendental” philosophical theory of our human cognitive faculties — in terms of “forms of sensible intuition” and “pure concepts” or “categories” of rational thought. These cognitive structures are taken to describe a fixed and absolutely universal rationality — common to all human beings at all times and in all places — and thereby to explain the sense in which mathematical natural science represents a model or exemplar of such rationality. (shrink)

Health inequalities are embedded in a complex array of social, political, and economic inequalities. Responding to health inequalities will require systematic action targeting all the underlying (“upstream”) social determinants that powerfully affect health and well‐being. Systemic inequalities are a major reason for the rise of modern populism that has deeply divided polities and infected politics, perhaps nowhere more so than in the United States. Concerted action to mitigate shocking levels of inequality could be a powerful antidote to nationalist populism. A (...) basic yet critical start to addressing health inequalities is to recognize them, which demands improving data collection and analysis. Certainly, global indicators show vast progress in reducing poverty and extending life. Yet aggregate health data mask a deeper reality: health gains have disproportionately benefited the well‐off, leaving the poor and middle‐class behind. (shrink)

In this interview, Robert Sapolsky outlines his view on Free Will and related topics. The discussion anticipates his upcoming book Determined: The Science of Life Without Free Will. Various topics are covered at the intersection of neuroscience with philosophy, education, and the criminal justice system.

This provocative book explores the ideology of truth and deception in China, offering a nuanced perspective on social interaction in different cultural settings. Drawing on decades of fieldwork in China, Susan D. Blum examines rules, expectations, and beliefs regarding lying and honesty. She argues that public lying is evaluated within Chinese society by culturally specific moral values. Chinese, for example, might emphasize the consequences of speech, Americans the absolute truthfulness. But many Americans also excel in manipulation of language, yet find (...) a simultaneous moral absolutism opposed to lying in any form. Blum considers Japanese and Jewish traditions as well, which similarly struggle to control the boundaries of honesty. (shrink)

The Tulis thesis becomes even more powerful when the constitutional revolution he describes is put in its Progressive‐Era context. The public had long demanded social reforms designed to curb or replace laissez‐faire capitalism, which was seen as antithetical to the interests of ordinary working people. But popular demands for social reform went largely unmet until the 1910s. Democratizing political reforms, such as the rhetorical presidency, were designed to facilitate “change” by finally giving the public the power to enact social reforms. (...) The resulting political order has created systemic pressure for policy demagoguery in place of rational deliberation. Mass political mobilization seems to be better achieved by contests of grand principle that pit the well‐meaning supporters of obviously needed reforms against “villains and conspirators,” than by technical discussions of the possibly counterproductive effects of those reforms. (shrink)

Economists tend to view ignorance as ?rational,? neglecting the possibility that ignorance is unintentional. This oversight is reflected in economists? model of ?information search,? which can be fruitfully contrasted with ?information browsing.? Information searches are designed to discover unknown knowns, whose value is calculable ex ante, such that this value justifies the cost of the search. In this model of human information acquisition, there is no primal or ?radical? ignorance that might prevent people from knowing which information to look for, (...) lacking omniscience. Unlike ignorance that is rationally chosen on the basis of an accurate cost/benefit calculation, radical ignorance can explain human error. An account of error as grounded in radical ignorance bypasses the need to appeal to irrationality in order to explain economic (and other) mistakes. (shrink)

Fukuyama's argument that we have recently reached ?The End of History?; is defended against writers who fail to appreciate the Hegelian meaning of Fukuyama's ?Endism,?; but is criticized for using simplistic dichotomies that evade the economic and ideological convergence of East and West. Against Fukuyama, the economic critique of socialism, revisionist scholarship on early Soviet economic history, and the history of the libertarian ideas of Rousseau, Kant, Hegel and Marx are deployed to show that history ?ended?; years ago: the creeds (...) of the First and Second Worlds sprang from common assumptions; and even before Eastern European reform movements, both sides of the Iron Curtain had moved to economies that are neither capitalist nor socialist. (shrink)

This book presents an overview of the later medieval trinitarian theology of the rival Franciscan and Dominican intellectual traditions, and includes detailed studies of thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, John Duns Scotus, ...

ABSTRACT This essay considers the relationship between history of science and philosophy of science from Thomas Kuhn to the present. This relationship, of course, has often been troubled, but there is now new hope for an ongoing productive interaction—due to an increasing awareness, among other things, of the mutual entanglement between the development of modern science and the development of modern philosophy on the part of both professional (historically minded) philosophers and professional historians of science. This idea is illustrated with (...) several examples, including the entanglement of Einstein's theory of relativity with logical empiricism and its precursors and the entanglement of the analytic tradition in philosophy first with mathematical logic and then (through mathematical logic) with the cognitive sciences. Against this background, finally, the essay considers the emergence of contemporary social and cultural history of science from the Kantian and neo‐Kantian philosophical traditions. (shrink)

The concept of a “scientific philosophy” first developed in the mid nineteenth century, as a reaction against what was viewed as the excessively speculative and metaphysical character of post-Kantian German idealism. One of the primary intellectual models of this movement was a celebrated address by Hermann von Helmholtz, “Über das Sehen des Menschen,” delivered at the dedication of a monument to Kant at Königsberg in 1855. Helmholtz begins by asking, on behalf of the audience, why a natural scientist like himself (...) is speaking in honor of a philosopher. This question only arises, he says, because of the current deplorable climate of enmity and mutual distrust between the two fields – a climate which is due, in Helmholtz’s opinion, to the entirely speculative system of Naturphilosophie that Schelling and Hegel have erected wholly independent of, and even in open hostility towards, the actual positive results of the natural sciences. What Helmholtz is now recommending, however, is a return to the close cooperation between the two fields exemplified in the work of Kant, who himself made significant contributions to natural science, and, in general, “stood in relation to the natural sciences together with the natural scientists on precisely the same fundamental principles.”1 And it was this recommendation that was enthusiastically embraced within the emerging “back to Kant!” movement, where it led to the idea that all metaphysics should be replaced by the new discipline of “epistemology” or “theory of knowledge”, so that philosophy itself would now become “scientific.”. (shrink)

Conflicts of interest have an erosive effect on trust in science, damaging first the attitude of the public toward scientists and their research, but also weakening the trusting interdependence of scientists. Disclosure is recognized as the key tool for management of conflicts, but rules with sanctions must be improved, new techniques for avoidance of financial conflicts by alternative funding of evaluative research must be sought, and there must be new thinking about institutional conflicts of interest. Our profession is education, and (...) both the public and research professionals of all ages would benefit from greater understanding of how science should and does work. (shrink)

The goal of the left has been predominantly libertarian: the realization of equal individual freedom. But now, with the demise of leftist hope for radical change that has followed the collapse of ?really existing?; socialism, the world is converging on a compromise between capitalism and the leftist impulse. This compromise is the democratic, interventionist welfare state, which has gained new legitimacy by virtue of combining a ?realistic?; acceptance of the unfortunate need for the market with an attempt to libertarianize capitalism (...) as much as possible, by intervening in its operation and redistributing the wealth it produces. Since the neoliberal economic critique of socialism seems to have been borne out by the events of 1989, neoliberal economists might now be expected to provide a similar critique of the new interventionist consensus. Yet there are few signs of their interest in doing so. This might be due to their acceptance of an erroneous interpretation of liberty which equates it with capitalist property relations, and which, they believe, provides an overarching moral justification for their opposition to state intervention in the market. Acceptance of this moralistic, ?libertarian?; version of neoliberalism may obscure the need for a synthetic critique of the new consensus which would integrate the many extant consequentialist arguments against it. Before reviewing the libertarian motives behind both socialism and intervention?ism, criticisms of moralistic neoliberal ?libertarianism?; are offered. These are intended to clear the way for a consequentialist critique of the interventionist welfare state. Finally, it is suggested that the problems with such a critique point toward a different project: a critique of the culture that gives rise to interventionism. (shrink)

Taber and Lodge's 2006 paper provides powerful evidence that one's prior beliefs shape one's reception of new evidence in a manner that can best be described as “inadvertently dogmatic.” This is especially true for people who are well informed, which dovetails with findings going back to Converse (1964) showing political beliefs to be ideologically constrained (rigid) among the relatively well informed. What may explain the coincidence of dogmatism and knowledgeability is the very process of learning about politics, which must use (...) theories, schemas, ideologies, or Lippmannesque “stereotypes” to target certain political information as germane by putting it into an interpretive framework. This interpretive process is likely to create for each of us a growing database of information that is congruent with our extant convictions but that excludes incongruent information: in light of the data we have already processed, incongruent information seems increasingly implausible (if not incomprehensible), and is therefore rationally ignored or dismissed. But this does not necessarily mean, as Taber and Lodge follow Robert Abelson in suggesting, that people are “motivated” to be dogmatic rather than being unintentionally closed minded as a result of the plausibility they involuntarily accord to their priors. Recognizing the inadvertent (unmotivated) nature of dogmatism is essential if political science is to take seriously political actors' beliefs—and to assess the gravity of the problem posed by dogmatism. (shrink)

Ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic commonly used by US physicians, has recently been shown to be a powerful anti-depressant and is also capable of eliciting transpersonal experiences that can be transformative. Although currently approved in the US only for use as an anesthetic, physicians there can legally prescribe it off-label to treat various psychological/ psychiatric problems and it has been used for these non-anesthetic purposes in Argentina, Iran, Mexico, Russia, and the UK, as well as in the US. The literature on (...) using ketamine psychotherapeutically is reviewed and two case studies using ketamine-enhanced psychotherapy for treating death anxiety in terminally-ill people are reported. The potential importance of beginning formal research on using KEP during end-of-life for those suffering death anxiety is emphasized. (shrink)

We study the formalization within sybsystems of second-order arithmetic of theorems concerning periodic points in dynamical systems on the real line. We show that Sharkovsky's theorem is provable in WKL0. We show that, with an additional assumption, Sharkovsky's theorem is provable in RCA0. We show that the existence for all n of n-fold iterates of continuous mappings of the closed unit interval into itself is equivalent to the disjunction of Σ02 induction and weak König's lemma.

his paper explores the relationship between Kant’s views on the metaphysical foundations of Newtonian mathematical physics and his more general transcendental philosophy articulated in the Critique of pure reason. I argue that the relationship between the two positions is very close indeed and, in particular, that taking this relationship seriously can shed new light on the structure of the transcendental deduction of the categories as expounded in the second edition of the Critique.Author Keywords: Kant; Mathematical physics; Transcendental deduction.

We argue that the language of Zermelo Fraenkel set theory with definitions and partial functions provides the most promising bedrock semantics for communicating and sharing mathematical knowledge. We then describe a syntactic sugaring of that language that provides a way of writing remarkably readable assertions without straying far from the set-theoretic semantics. We illustrate with some examples of formalized textbook definitions from elementary set theory and point-set topology. We also present statistics concerning the complexity of these definitions, under various complexity (...) measures. (shrink)

PREFACE. We present a variety of basic theories involving fundamental concepts of naive thinking, of the sort that were common in "natural philosophy" before the dawn of physical science. The most extreme forms of infinity ever formulated are embodied in the branch of mathematics known as abstract set theory, which forms the accepted foundation for all of mathematics. Each of these theories embodies the most extreme forms of infinity ever formulated, in the following sense. ZFC, and even extensions of ZFC (...) with the so called large cardinal axioms, are mutually interpretable with these theories. This is an extended abstract. Proofs of the claims will appear elsewhere. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the relationship between the general metaphysics of the Critique of Pure Reason and the special metaphysics of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Kant claims that what distinguishes the latter from the former is that the latter presupposes an empirical concept, namely the concept of matter, whereas the former does not. It is argued that the concept of matter is empirical not in any ordinary sense, but in the sense that it requires actual perceptible objects to (...) be given. Only the system of contingently given, empirical objects of the solar system as described by Newtonian physics, satisfies this requirement. This interpretation suggests that “experience”, whose possibility Kant is exploring in the first Critique, is exclusively “scientific experience”, and that the task of theoretical philosophy thus lies primarily in understanding the conceptual presuppositions of scientific experience. (shrink)