Kim & Drager (2018) provide new evidence confirming that socially‐indexed phonetic cues affect lexical access. They show that young listeners are faster and more accurate when responding to words associated with young people and spoken by younger talkers, compared with old‐associated words and older talkers. The effect of phonetic detail on lexical access is rapid and obtains even when the listener holds no expectations about the talker's age prior to the onset of the word.

Julian Schlöder (2018) examines Timothy Williamson's proposal that knowledge is the norm of assertion within the context of deontic logic. He argues for two claims, one concerning the formalisation of the thesis that knowledge is a norm of assertion and another concerning the formalisation of the thesis that knowledge is the only norm of assertion. On the basis of these claims, Schlöder goes on to raise a series of problems for Williamson's proposal. In response, I argue that both of Schlöder's (...) claims can—and should—be rejected. (shrink)

This book, based on Jaegwon Kim's 1996 Townsend Lectures, presents the philosopher's current views on a variety of issues in the metaphysics of the mind...

Why do people enjoy watching scary movies? Should we bet on the existence of God? Why is pleasure better than pain? And when is a duck not a duck? Mini Philosophy is a fascinating journey into what some of the greatest minds of the last 2500 years have to say about the big questions in life, and why they are relevant to us today. Covering everything from Sun Tzu's strategy for winning at board games to Freud's insights into our 'death (...) drive'; why De Beauvoir believed the mothering instinct is a myth to why Schopenhauer probably wasn't much fun at parties, these mini meditations will expand your mind (and bend it too). (shrink)

In recent years, the ‘mechanistic view’ has developed as a popular alternative to the ‘semantic view’ concerning the identity of physical computation. However, semanticists have provided powerful arguments that suggest the mechanistic view fails to deliver essential distinctions between paradigmatic computational operations. This article reviews responses on behalf of the mechanist and uses this opportunity to propose a type of pluralism about computational identity. This pluralism contends that there are multiple ‘levels’ of properties and relations pertaining to computation that can (...) inform different kinds of individuation. As such, for the pluralist, there are multiple legitimate ways of classifying computation, depending on the nature of the system in question, and one’s own epistemic priorities. (shrink)

A promising strategy for defending the role that representation plays in explanations of cognition frames the concept in terms of internal models or map‐like mechanisms. “Structural representation” offers an account of representation that is grounded in well‐specified, empirical criteria. However, anti‐representationalists continue to press the issue of how to account for the paradigmatic semantic properties of representation at the subpersonal level. In this paper, I offer an account of how the proponent of structural representation should think about content. There are (...) really two problems of content any account of representation must overcome: the “hard problem of content” and the “content determination problem.” I argue that the structural representation account has the resources to provide a naturalistically respectable notion of content that overcomes both problems. (shrink)

Can one be cruel to an inanimate object? In the following I argue that one can in fact be cruel to an inanimate object, defining cruelty as taking pleasure in intentionally causing suffering to another person, animal or inanimate object, whether such suffering be genuine, mistakenly believed, or sincerely hoped for. I label the conception of cruelty in question ‘agent-subjective, possible mistake of fact’, and touch upon some implications of this.

Enactivism advances an understanding of cognition rooted in the dynamic interaction between an embodied agent and their environment, whilst new mechanism suggests that cognition is explained by uncovering the organised components underlying cognitive capacities. On the face of it, the mechanistic model’s emphasis on localisable and decomposable mechanisms, often neural in nature, runs contrary to the enactivist ethos. Despite appearances, this paper argues that mechanistic explanations of cognition, being neither narrow nor reductive, and compatible with plausible iterations of ideas like (...) emergence and downward causation, are congruent with enactivism. Attention to enactivist ideas, moreover, may serve as a heuristic for mechanistic investigations of cognition. Nevertheless, I show how enactivism and approaches that prioritise mechanistic modelling may diverge in starting assumptions about the nature of cognitive phenomena, such as where the constitutive boundaries of cognition lie. (shrink)

Recent developments in the literature suggest cognitive representation can be conceived of as a kind of mechanism that meets the functional profile set out by the S-representation account. However, this approach is threatened by worries that the S-representation account cannot tell a satisfactory story about content determination at the subpersonal level. One solution is to complement the S-representation account with a traditional etiological theory of content determination. This paper argues such a move is unwarranted and threatens the broader project of (...) understanding representation in mechanism-friendly terms. Once properly situated within a mechanistic framework, the S-representation account can address the issue of content determination without supplementing it with an etiological theory. In turn, this strengthens the notion that combing a mechanistic framework with the S-representation account provides a robust and comprehensive defense of representation’s positive role in cognitive science. (shrink)

The mechanistic model depicts scientific explanations as involving the discovery of multi-level, organized components that constitute a target phenomenon. Meanwhile, sensorimotor enactivism purports to offer a scientifically informed account of perceptual experience as a skill-laden interactive relationship, constitutively involving both perceiver and world, rather than as an agent-bound representation of the world. Insofar as sensorimotor enactivism identifies an empirically tractable phenomenon – skillful agent-world interaction – and mechanistic explanation establishes the subpersonal components of this phenomenon, the two approaches allow for (...) a fruitful division of labor in investigating perceptual experience. On closer inspection, however, two challenges arise. First, the “representation challenge” arises because promising attempts to set out implementational details of our sensorimotor interaction with the world implicate cognitive representations, creating tension with sensorimotor enactivism’s nonrepresentational commitments. Second, the “reconstitution challenge” arises when mechanistic explanation not only uncovers the components of some established phenomenon but plays a role in “reconstituting” this phenomenon. This means that, through investigating mechanisms, perceptual experience may be reconceived such that its constituents are wholly organism-bound. We explore both challenges to the compatibility of mechanism and sensorimotor enactivism and examine possible solutions. The result is a clearer understanding of the tensions and opportunities for learning between the frameworks. (shrink)

It is generally acknowledged by proponents of ‘new mechanism’ that mechanistic explanation involves adopting a perspective, but there is less agreement on how we should understand this perspective-taking or what its implications are for practising science. This paper examines the perspectival nature of mechanistic explanation through the lens of the ‘mechanistic stance’, which falls somewhere between Dennett’s more familiar physical and design stance. We argue this approach implies three distinct and significant ways in which mechanistic explanation can be interpreted as (...) perspectival: ‘phenomenon perspectivism’, ‘pattern perspectivism’ and ‘hierarchy perspectivism’. We evaluate the strength of the perspective-dependency implied by each of these, and along the way, discuss their significance for wider debates within the new mechanism literature, such as the nature of function attribution and an ontic vs epistemic understanding of explanation. (shrink)

Factory farming continues to grow around the world as a low-cost way of producing animal products for human consumption. However, many of the practices associated with intensive animal farming have been criticized by public health professionals and animal welfare advocates. The aim of this essay is to raise three independent moral concerns with factory farming, and to explain why the practices associated with factory farming flourish despite the cruelty inflicted on animals and the public health risks imposed on people. I (...) conclude that the costs of factory farming as it is currently practiced far outweigh the benefits, and offer a few suggestions for how to improve the situation for animals and people. (shrink)

The structural representation (S-representation) account provides an increasingly popular way of understanding the role and value of representation in cognitive science. Yet critics remain unconvinced that the account has the resources to rescue representationalism. This paper reviews problems faced by the S-representation account. In doing so, it offers a novel taxonomy that divides objections into two broad camps that ought to be disambiguated: ‘conceptual’ and ‘empirical’. It further shows how these objections can be met, bolstering existing responses in the literature (...) with novel solutions, thus strengthening the S-representation account. Finally, this paper suggests that the types of objections identified provide a generalisable taxonomy for a better understanding of any version of anti-representationalism. Thus, this review is of value to the representation debate more broadly. (shrink)

The French philosopher Gilles Deleuze repeatedly referred to a wide range of sports and games throughout his career. This article assembles a comprehensive view of the philosophy of sport seen from Deleuze’s perspective. By studying the development of how he discussed different sports and games, and by pinpointing the concepts he constructed with reference to them, the article attests to the merits of a Deleuzian philosophy of sports. His term athleticism is utilised as a node to overview his allusions to (...) sports and games in general. Special attention is paid to sport as a companion to the creative domains of science, philosophy, and art. Thus, it is concluded that what athletes create are moves, which amounts to inventing new styles which may alter the sport and attest to new ways of thinking through bodies in motion. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that one of the core functions of government is to supply public goods that markets either fail to provide or cannot provide efficiently. I will suggest that arguments for government provision of public goods require fundamental moral judgments in addition to the usual economic considerations about the relative efficacy of markets and governments in supplying them. While philosophers and policymakers owe a debt of gratitude to economists for developing the theory of public goods, the link between (...) public goods and public policy cannot be forged without moral reflection on the proper function and scope of government power. (shrink)

In the ultimate meeting of the sublime with the ridiculous" (London Evening Standard) My Beautiful Despair blends the existential philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard with the superficial musings of Kim Kardashian West, based on the popular Twitter feed @KimKierkegaard. The love child of Søren Kierkegaard and Kim Kardashian, the @KimKierkegaard Twitter account has been admired, praised, and adored in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Financial Times, The Economist, New York, Buzzfeed, and more, and has amassed nearly (...) a quarter of a million Twitter followers, including J.K. Rowling and Anna Kendrick. A mash-up of Kim's tweets and observations with Kierkegaard's philosophy, Kim Kierkegaardashian shares their musings on fashion, beauty, brunch, and the relentless waves of existential dread that wash over us day after day. Now in a humorous, illustrated gift book, perfectly suited for our existential times, Kierkegaardashian's philosophical insights are juxtaposed for the first time with Dash Shaw's brilliant black-and-white illustrations. A sample of the revelations included in My Beautiful Despair include: - I have majorly fallen off my workout-eating plan! AND it's summer. But to despair over sin is to sink deeper into it. - Obsessed with protecting your skin, lips, hair & face from the sun? Close the cover of the coffin tight, really tight, and be at peace. - I like my men like I like my coffee: a momentary comfort in the midst of all my suffering. - What is the operation by which a self relates itself to its own self, transparently? Selfie. - What if everything in life were a misunderstanding, what if laughter were really tears? Scared LOL!! - Glamour, menswear, top hat. (shrink)

La presente reflexión tiene por objetivo central aportar, desde la teoría científico-filosófica sobre el cuerpo humano construida por Pedro Laín Entralgo, una propuesta antropológica que posibilite el diálogo con el transhumanismo tecnocientífico. A nivel metodológico, el texto se ha estructurado en dos momentos. En el primero, se hace una revisión de la situación (sitius) del cuerpo de cara al transhumanismo info, para luego, en un segundo momento, aportar (locus), desde la obra lainiana, una concepción antropológica integral. Se espera que, al (...) pensar la materia desde un dinamismo estructural que hace de la realidad corpórea una unidad psico-orgánica capaz de decir “yo” (persona), se pueda establecer un cuestionamiento profundo a la concepción antropológica propuesta por el transhumanismo info, para la cual, el cuerpo orgánico es materia inútil de la que es necesario liberarse para superar los límites de la biología. (shrink)

AI technologies hold great promise for addressing existing problems in organizational contexts, but the potential benefits must not obscure the potential perils associated with AI. In this article, we conceptually explore these promises and perils by examining AI use in organizational contexts. The exploration complements and extends extant literature on AI management by providing a typology describing four types of AI use, based on the idea of co-constitution of AI technologies and organizational context. Building on this typology, we propose three (...) recommendations for informed use of AI in contemporary organizations. First, explicitly define the purpose of organizational AI use. Second, define the appropriate level of transparency and algorithmic management for organizational AI use. Third, be aware of AI’s context-dependent nature. (shrink)

Probability can be used to measure degree of belief in two ways: objectively and subjectively. The objective measure is a measure of the rational degree of belief in a proposition given a set of evidential propositions. The subjective measure is the measure of a particular subject’s dispositions to decide between options. In both measures, certainty is a degree of belief 1. I will show, however, that there can be cases where one belief is stronger than another yet both beliefs are (...) plausibly measurable as objectively and subjectively certain. In ordinary language, we can say that while both beliefs are certain, one belief is more certain than the other. I will then propose second, non probabilistic dimension of measurement, which tracks this variation in certainty in such cases where the probability is 1. A general principle of rationality is that one’s subjective degree of belief should match the rational degree of belief given the evidence available. In this paper I hope to show that it is also a rational principle that the maximum stake size at which one should remain certain should match the rational weight of certainty given the evidence available. Neither objective nor subjective measures of certainty conform to the axioms of probability, but instead are measured in utility. This has the consequence that, although it is often rational to be certain to some degree, there is no such thing as absolute certainty. (shrink)

What is the best possible society? How would its rulers govern and its citizens behave? Such questions are sometimes dismissed as distractions from genuine political problems, but in an era when political idealism seems a relic of the past, says Jonny Thakkar, they are more urgent than ever. A daring experiment in using ancient philosophy to breathe life into our political present, Plato as Critical Theorist takes seriously one of Plato’s central claims: that philosophers should rule. What many accounts (...) miss is the intimate connection between Plato’s politics and his metaphysics, Thakkar argues. Philosophy is the activity of articulating how parts and wholes best fit together, while ruling is the activity that shapes the parts of society into a coherent whole conducive to the good life. Plato’s ideal society is thus one in which ideal theory itself plays a leading role. -/- Today’s liberal democracies require not philosopher-kings legislating from above but philosopher-citizens willing to work toward a vision of the best society in their daily lives. Against the claim that such idealism is inherently illiberal, Thakkar shows that it is fully compatible with the liberal theories of both Popper and Rawls while nevertheless pushing beyond them in providing a new vantage point for the Marxian critique of capitalism. (shrink)

The battle over the proper place of mental representation in cognitive science is often portrayed as a clash between realism and eliminativism. But this simple dichotomy belies the variety of different ontological positions available. This article investigates the various stances that one can adopt toward the ontology of mental representation, and in so doing, shows that eliminativism is in fact best understood as two distinct positions: a posteriori eliminativism and a priori eliminativism. Furthermore, I show that a priori eliminativism faces (...) two crippling challenges. I argue that once we put a priori eliminativism aside, determining the ultimate ontological status of representation can be postponed while we assess its utility across different domains of cognitive science—something all remaining positions can agree on. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a novel account of entrapment. This account suggests that the wrongness of pursuing punishment in cases of entrapment consists of two distinct components, one concerning the culpability of the entrapped defendant and the other concerning the legitimacy of the entrapping state to prosecute crimes that it has effectively created. Distinguishing these two components of entrapment, I explain, helps to clarify the moral issues at stake and to resolve some confusions and debates in existing legal analyses (...) of entrapment. (shrink)

Abstract:Trust is important for a variety of social relationships. Trust facilitates trade, which increases prosperity and induces us to interact with people of different backgrounds on terms that benefit all parties. Trade promotes trustworthiness, which enables us to form meaningful as well as mutually beneficial relationships. In what follows, I argue that when we erect institutions that enhance trust and reward people who are worthy of trust, we create the conditions for a certain kind of moral progress.

On most accounts, beliefs are supposed to fit the world rather than change it. But believing can have social consequences, since the beliefs we form underwrite our actions and impact our character. Because our beliefs affect how we live our lives and how we treat other people, it is surprising how little attention is usually given to the moral status of believing apart from its epistemic justification. In what follows, I develop a version of the harm principle that applies to (...) beliefs as well as actions. In doing so, I challenge the often exaggerated distinction between forming beliefs and acting on them.1 After developing this view, I consider what it might imply about controversial research the goal of which is to yield true beliefs but the outcome of which might include negative social consequences. In particular, I focus on the implications of research into biological differences between racial groups. (shrink)

Although informed consent is important in clinical research, questions persist regarding when it is necessary, what it requires, and how it should be obtained. The standard view in research ethics is that the function of informed consent is to respect individual autonomy. However, consent processes are multidimensional and serve other ethical functions as well. These functions deserve particular attention when barriers to consent exist. We argue that consent serves seven ethically important and conceptually distinct functions. The first four functions pertain (...) principally to individual participants: (1) providing transparency; (2) allowing control and authorization; (3) promoting concordance with participants' values; and (4) protecting and promoting welfare interests. Three other functions are systemic or policy focused: (5) promoting trust; (6) satisfying regulatory requirements; and (7) promoting integrity in research. Reframing consent around these functions can guide approaches to consent that are context sensitive and that maximize achievable goals. (shrink)

There is growing evidence that plants possess abilities associated with cognition, such as decision-making, anticipation and learning. And yet, the cognitive status of plants continues to be contested. Among the threats to plant cognitive status is the ‘Representation Demarcation Challenge’ which points to the absence of a seemingly defining aspect of cognition, namely, computation over representation with non-derived content. Defenders of plant cognition may appeal to post-cognitivist perspectives, such as enactivism, which challenge the assumptions of the Representation Demarcation Challenge. This (...) points to an impasse in the debate over plant cognition as it collapses into perennial disagreements over the best way to conceptualise the very nature of cognition. I propose a path that allows us to bypass this quagmire by reconceiving the question of what is cognitive about ‘plant cognition’ in terms of a quest to map the many possible adaptive capacities and behaviours more-or-less associated with cognition, alongside their underlying processes and mechanisms. In turn, we can examine the degrees of similarity between plants and more paradigmatically cognitive creatures. The ‘piecemeal approach’ thus shifts attention away from the abstract and dichotomous question of whether plants are cognitive and towards a series of more precise questions about the many ways and extent to which plants possess features associated with cognition. Ultimately, I suggest, the value of viewing plants through a cognitive lens may lie less in determining whether they are bona fide cognitive creatures and more in guiding research into concrete abilities and their underlying causes. (shrink)

Direction of fit theories usually claim that beliefs are such that they “aim at truth” or “ought to fit” the world and desires are such that they “aim at realization” or the world “ought to fit” them. This essay argues that no theory of direction of fit is correct. The two directions of fit are supposed to be determinations of one and the same determinable two-place relation, differing only in the ordering of favored terms. But there is no such determinable (...) because of ineliminable asymmetries between the way that beliefs “aim at truth” and the way that desires “aim at realization.” This essay traces the ills of direction of fit theory to a misunderstanding of Anscombe and proposes a cure that distinguishes theoretical and practical thought by appeal to a distinction between thought in the form of a state and thought in the form of an event. (shrink)

See "What's Wrong with Factory Farming?" (2015) for an updated treatment of these issues.

This chapter contains sections titled: Zack's Sensitivity Zack's Race Zack's Desire Zack's Violence Music Conclusion Notes.