Carrie Figdor presents a critical assessment of how psychological terms are used to describe the non-human biological world. She argues against the anthropocentric attitude which takes human cognition as the standard against which non-human capacities are measured, and offers an alternative basis for naturalistic explanation of the mind.

This paper advances the development of a phylogeny-based psychology in which cognitive ability types are individuated as characters in the evolutionary biological sense. I explain the character concept and its utility in addressing (or dissolving) conceptual problems arising from discoveries of cognitive abilities across a wide range of species. I use the examples of stereopsis in the praying mantis, internal cell-to-cell signaling in plants, and episodic memory in scrub jays to show how anthropocentric cognitive ability types can be reformulated into (...) cognitive characters, thereby promoting the integration of psychology with other sciences of evolved traits. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the nature of objective news and the debate regarding its possibility. It then assesses the main arguments for the unattainability of objective news. A close examination of these arguments shows that, contrary to widespread belief, journalists who try to provide objective news are not striving in vain. The chapter discusses the effect of competing journalistic aims and other limitations on our efforts to generate objective news. It suggests that the unwarranted skepticism regarding the possibility of objective news (...) is an artifact of the changing priorities of journalists and inadequate journalistic methods, and that the only real issue is how we can better train those journalists who want to generate objective news. (shrink)

This paper investigates the norm of presupposition, as one pervasive type of indirect speech act. It argues against the view that sees presuppositions as an indirect counterpart of the direct speech act of assertion and proposes instead that they are much more similar to the direct speech act of assumption. More concretely, it suggests that the norm that governs presuppositions is not an epistemic or doxastic attitude such as knowledge, justified belief, or mere belief; it's a practical attitude, most plausibly (...) the attitude of rational acceptance. This view has important ramifications well beyond debates in philosophy of language and linguistics. It affects not only our view of which speech act sequences are fine and which are off; it bears on whether presuppositions can function as testimony, whether they can be lies, and whether they are ontologically committal, thus addressing central topics in epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper summarizes recent and ongoing experimental work regarding the reality, nature, effects, and causes of the underrepresentation of women in academic philosophy. We first present empirical data on several aspects of underrepresentation, and then consider various reasons why this gender imbalance is problematic. We then turn to the published and preliminary results of empirical work aimed at identifying factors that might explain it.

Consequentialism is the view that the rightness or wrongness of actions depend solely on their consequences. It is one of the most influential, and controversial, of all ethical theories. In this book, Julia Driver introduces and critically assesses consequentialism in all its forms. After a brief historical introduction to the problem, Driver examines utilitarianism, and the arguments of its most famous exponents, John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, and explains the fundamental questions underlying utilitarian theory: what value is to (...) be specified and how it is to be maximized. Driver also discusses indirect forms of consequentialism, the important theories of motive consequentialism and virtue consequentialism, and explains why the distinction between subjective and objective consequentialism is so important. Including helpful features such as a glossary, chapter summaries, and annotated further reading at the end of each chapter, Consequentialism is ideal for students seeking an authoritative and clearly explained survey of this important problem. (shrink)

We are consumers of drugs and news, and sometimes call ourselves addicts or junkies of one or both. I propose to take the concept of news – more generally, doxastic – addiction seriously. I define doxastic addiction and relate this type of addiction to echo chambers and religious belief. I show how this analysis directs attention to appropriate interventions to help doxastic addicts, and how it offers a new type of justification for limits on free speech. -/- .

The lack of gender parity in philosophy has garnered serious attention recently. Previous empirical work that aims to quantify what has come to be called “the gender gap” in philosophy focuses mainly on the absence of women in philosophy faculty and graduate programs. Our study looks at gender representation in philosophy among undergraduate students, undergraduate majors, graduate students, and faculty. Our findings are consistent with what other studies have found about women faculty in philosophy, but we were able to add (...) two pieces of new information. First, the biggest drop in the proportion of women in philosophy occurs between students enrolled in introductory philosophy classes and philosophy majors. Second, this drop is mitigated by the presence of more women philosophy faculty. (shrink)

This paper argues that the vitalist monisms of Anne Conway and Margaret Cavendish. Even though Conway is often cited as a proponent of a thoroughgoing ‘spiritualist’ ontology and Cavendish as the advocate of a similarly thoroughgoing materialism, their views turn out to be much closer than they may initially seem. Apart from highlighting the more radical nature of Conway’s position, such a reframing also has the added advantage of bringing the similarities between her own ‘spiritual’ monism and the vitalist ‘materialisms’ (...) of her time into sharper relief. As F. Wunderlich emphasizes, the notion of subtle matter pervaded the natural sciences of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. The chapter provides a brief sketch of Cavendish’s ‘materialism’ and compares it to Conway’s view of created substance, drawing out a number of relevant similarities. It asks what may have motivated Conway and Cavendish to move beyond the materialism-immaterialism divide by ‘spiritualizing’ matter in this way. (shrink)

Looks at the psychological nature of depression and discusses its portrayal in literature and art.

This entry provides an overview of the current state of the debate between epistemic permissivists and impermissivists. Three important choice points for the permissivist are identified, and implications are discussed for plausibility of the resulting versions of permissivism.

Discussions about the morality of slavery are a central part of the history of early modern philosophy. This book explores the philosophical ideas, theories, and arguments that occur in eighteenth-century debates about slavery, with a particular focus on the role that race plays in these debates. This exploration reveals how closely Blackness and slavery had come to be associated and how common it was to believe that Black people are natural slaves, or naturally destined for slavery. The book examines not (...) just well-known authors like David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but also less widely studied philosophers like Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, Lemuel Haynes, and Olympe de Gouges. By presenting philosophically important aspects of debates about slavery in eighteenth-century North America and Europe, the book aims to be a valuable resource for scholars, instructors, and students who are curious about a topic that historians of philosophy have so far neglected. (shrink)

The format of this volume in the Library of Living Philosophers series provides for a detailed interaction between those who interpret and critique Julia Kristeva's work and Kristeva herself, giving broad coverage, from diverse viewpoints, of all the major topics establishing her reputation. This work begins with her autobiography, which provides an excellent introduction to her work, situating it in relation to major political, intellectual, and cultural movements of the time. The major part of the book is comprised of (...) thirty-six essays by Kristeva's foremost interpreters and critics, together with her replies to the essays. These encounters cover an exceptionally wide range of theoretical and literary writing. The strong international and multidisciplinary focus includes authors from over ten countries, and spans the fields of philosophy, semiotics, literature, psychoanalysis, feminist thought, political theory, art, and religion. A comprehensive bibliography of works by Kristeva is included. (shrink)

Ausgehend von Lucian Freuds Bild »Painter Working, Reflection« (1993) entwirft Julia Regina Meer eine korporale Philosophie der Bilder. Das Bild avanciert dabei zum Ausgangspunkt des Denkens, was eine methodische Abgrenzung zu den Bildwissenschaften wie auch zur Bildtheorie ermöglicht. In Anlehnung an die Philosophie von Jean-Luc Nancy schlägt sie ein affirmatives Konzept von Körperlichkeit vor, das auf dem Grenzbegriff der Expeausition - der körperlichen Ausgesetztheit entlang der Haut - beruht. Wie der Selbstakt von Freud zeigt, potenzieren Bilder dieses Ausgesetztsein, da (...) sie nicht nur einen Bildinhalt ausstellen, sondern immer auch den Bildkörper mitaussetzen. (shrink)

This article develops the argument that non-cosmopolitan considerations of justice justify relief of sovereign debt for highly indebted poor states. In particular, the article claims that considerations of national determination warrant some debt-forgiveness in the backdrop of unfair terms of global interaction. In a context of inequality, poor countries cannot generally afford to disregard the costs of ignoring the interests of the wealthiest states. Patterns of unbalanced interaction undermine national self-determination by limiting the poor countries' effective capacity to choose between (...) different policies to achieve development and other worthy goals. In concrete, this article suggests that unequal terms of interaction constrain national self-determination by making of sovereign debt an 'escape mechanism' in the absence of rival alternatives to palliate the effects of underdevelopment and related afflictions, despite the causes of sovereign debt being partly domestic, possibly. Thus, this paper views national self-determination as dependent on the availability of acceptable (non-unbearably burdensome) policy options on the part of states. (shrink)

On Moral Certainty, Justification and Practice presents a view of morality that is inspired by the later Wittgenstein. Hermann explores the ethical implications of Wittgenstein's remarks on doubt, justification, rule-following, certainty and training, offering an alternative to interpretations of Wittgenstein's work that view it as being intrinsically ethical. The book scrutinises cases in which doubt and justification do not make sense, and contrasts certain justificatory demands made by philosophers with the role of moral justification in concrete situations. It offers an (...) account of moral certainty, which is linked to a view of moral competence. Contrary to the views propounded by philosophers who emphasise the importance of moral principles, it is argued that moral agency is first and foremost a matter of having certain capacities. The book takes an anti-intellectualist stance and remains close to concrete practices. The practice-based view of morality it endorses has implications for moral education, intercultural moral dialogue and the prospects for moral agreement, change and progress. (shrink)

Many empirically minded philosophers have used neuroscientific data to argue against the multiple realization of cognitive functions in existing biological organisms. I argue that neuroscientists themselves have proposed a biologically based concept of multiple realization as an alternative to interpreting empirical findings in terms of one‐to‐one structure‐function mappings. I introduce this concept and its associated research framework and also how some of the main neuroscience‐based arguments against multiple realization go wrong. *Received October 2009; revised December 2009. †To contact the author, (...) please write to: Department of Philosophy, 260 English‐Philosophy Building, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242; e‐mail: carrie‐figdor@uiowa.edu. (shrink)

What is the content of a mental state? This question poses the problem of intentionality: to explain how mental states can be about other things, where being about them is understood as representing them. A framework that integrates predictive coding and signaling systems theories of cognitive processing offers a new perspective on intentionality. On this view, at least some mental states are evaluations, which differ in function, operation, and normativity from representations. A complete naturalistic theory of intentionality must account for (...) both types of intentional state. (shrink)

Philosophical tradition has long held that free will is necessary for moral responsibility. We report experimental results that show that the folk do not think free will is necessary for moral responsibility. Our results also suggest that experimental investigation of the relationship is ill served by a focus on incompatibilism versus compatibilism. We propose an alternative framework for empirical moral psychology in which judgments of free will and moral responsibility can vary independently in response to many factors. We also suggest (...) that, in response to some factors, the necessity relation may run from responsibility to free will. (shrink)

One question of the bounds of cognition is that of which things have it. A scientifically relevant debate on this question must explain the persistent and selective use of psychological predicates to report findings throughout biology: for example, that neurons prefer, fruit flies and plants decide, and bacteria communicate linguistically. This paper argues that these claims should enjoy default literal interpretation. An epistemic consequence is that these findings can contribute directly to understanding the nature of psychological capacities.

We undergo a traumatic experience, such as a life-threatening accident or a brutal attack. We survive a period of relentless stress, perhaps because we are in a war zone and witness or commit atrocities. Raised by parents who are alcoholic or mentally ill, we endure traumatic experiences on a daily basis. Or, we are ignored, neglected, or treated as playthings by narcissistic parents, who themselves were ignored and neglected, and on and on through generations. To survive these experiences, perhaps we (...) dissociate. This can take various forms. In the extreme form, we remove ourselves, psychically speaking, from the situation, perhaps by adopting the role... (shrink)

DieBeratungklinische EthikberatungArzt-Patienten-BeziehungArztArzt-Patientenbeziehung ist durch ein asymmetrisches Verhältnis geprägt, welches sich bereits aus den Umständen seines Zustandekommens ergibt. Der Patient begegnet dem Arzt in einer Situation existentieller NotNot als jemand, der unter Schmerzen und/oder Angst leidet und Hilfe sucht. Er ist dabei angewiesen auf ein vertrauensvolles Verhältnis zu seinem Arzt, der seine Sorgen und Ängste ernstnimmt und durch seine Fachkompetenz die vorliegende KrankheitKrankheit feststellen und heilen oder zumindest lindern kann.

When a society is characterized by a climate of distrust, how does this impact the professional practices of news journalism? I focus on the practice of balance, or fair presentation of both sides in a story. I articulate a two-step model of how trust modulates the acceptance of tes-timony and draw out its implications for justifying the practice of balance.

I separate two intrinsic/extrinsic distinctions that are often conflated: one between properties (the intrinsic/extrinsic, or I/E, distinction) and one between the ways in which properties are had by individuals (the intrinsically/extrinsically, or I-ly/E-ly, distinction). I propose an analysis of the I-ly/E-ly distinction and its relation to the I/E distinction that explains, inter alia, the puzzle of cross-classification: how it can be, for example, that the property of being square can be classified as an intrinsic property and yet individuals can be (...) square intrinsically or else extrinsically. (shrink)

Humanists argue for assigning the highest moral status to all humans over any non-humans directly or indirectly on the basis of uniquely superior human cognitive abilities. They may also claim that humanism is the strongest position from which to combat racism, sexism, and other forms of within-species discrimination. I argue that changing conceptual foundations in comparative research and discoveries of advanced cognition in many non-human species reveal humanism’s psychological speciesism and its similarity with common justifications of within-species discrimination.

Work on the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction is often motivated by its use in other areas, such as intrinsic value, real vs. Cambridge change, supervenience and other topics. With the exception of Figdor 2008, philosophers have sought to articulate a global distinction -- a distinction between kinds of properties, rather than ways in which individuals have properties. I argue that global I/E distinctions are unable to do the work that allegedly motivates them, focusing on the case of intrinsic value.

I commend Mikhalevich & Powell for extending the discussion of cognition and its relation to moral status with their well researched and argued target article on invertebrate cognition. I have two small criticisms: that the scala naturae still retains its appeal to some in biology as well as psychology, and that drawing the line at invertebrates requires a bit more defense given the larger comparative cognitive-scientific context.

Julia Markovits develops a desire-based, internalist account of what normative reasons are--an account which is compatible with the idea that moral reasons can apply to all of us, regardless of our desires. She builds on Kant's formula of humanity to defend universal moral reasons, and addresses the age-old question of why we should be moral.

This essay examines the thought that our right actions have moral worth only if we perform them for the right reasons. It argues against the view, often ascribed to Kant, that morally worthy actions must be performed because they are right and argues that Kantians and others ought instead to accept the view that morally worthy actions are those performed for the reasons why they are right. In other words, morally worthy actions are those for which the reasons why they (...) were performed (the reasons motivating them) and the reasons why they morally ought to have been performed (the reasons morally justifying them) coincide. The essay calls this the Coincident Reasons Thesis and argues that it provides plausible necessary and sufficient conditions for morally worthy action, defending the claim against proposed counterexamples. It ends by showing that the plausibility of the thesis, which it argues is largely independent of any particular ethical standpoint, gives us some reason to doubt a class of ethical theories that includes utilitarianism. (shrink)

Sentences containing predicates of personal taste exhibit two striking features: whether they are true seems to lie in the eye of the beholder and whether they are true can be—and often is—subject to disagreement. In the last decade, there has been a lively debate about how to account for these two features. In this paper, I shall argue for two claims: first, I shall show that even the most promising approaches so far offered by proponents of so-called indexical contextualism fail (...) to account for the disagreement feature. They might be able to account for some disagreement data, but they have trouble accounting for two kinds of disagreement data that caused the estrangement from indexical contextualism and the migration to relativism in the first place: the denial and the retraction data. Second, I shall show that we still do not have to abandon indexical contextualism, because what I shall call the superiority approach—a new pragmatically extended version of indexical contextualism—can very well account for the data. (shrink)

Wie lassen sich Banalität, Trivialität und Kitsch voneinander unterscheiden und welche Rolle spielen sie für Kunst und Literatur? Zur Beantwortung dieser Fragen betrachtet Julia Genz Banalität, Trivialität und Kitsch als Bestandteile von Diskursen, in denen Zugänglichkeit bewertet wird. Zugänglichkeit ist dabei nicht von vornherein gegeben, sondern muss diskursiv erst hergestellt werden. Durch die Ausdifferenzierung in soziale, kognitive und emotionale Zugänglichkeit lassen sich die drei bislang nicht überzeugend getrennten Bereiche voneinander abgrenzen und mit ihren Gegenpolen Exklusivität, Komplexität und Kunst in (...) ein umfassendes Ästhetikmodell integrieren. (shrink)

I argue that an explicit distinction between cognitive characters and cognitive phenotypes is needed for empirical progress in the cognitive sciences and their integration with evolution-guided sciences. I elaborate what ontological commitment to characters involves and how such a commitment would clarify ongoing debates about the relations between human and nonhuman cognition and the extent of cognitive abilities across biological species. I use theoretical proposals in episodic memory, language, and sociocultural bases of cognition to illustrate how cognitive characters are being (...) introduced in scientific practice. (shrink)

Many people follow Grice in thinking that all conversational implicatures are cancellable. And often enough, they use this insight as a test for conversational implicatures. If you want to find out whether something is a conversational implicature, the test has it, you should ask yourself whether the thing in question is cancellable; if you find that it is not cancellable, you can infer that it is not a conversational implicature. If you find that it is cancellable, you can infer that (...) it might well be a conversational implicature and that you should now do further testing. Various philosophers and linguists have questioned the test however. Some have held that Grice's cancellability claim is subject to counterexamples and that the test is not reliable. Others have argued that even though Grice's claim can be defended against the examples in question, the test is not as informative as people have hoped. This article provides an overview of the recent discussion on the cancellability test and suggests a way forward. (shrink)

Elinor Mason has provided an account of blame and blameworthiness that is pluralistic. There are, broadly speaking, three ways in which we aptly blame -- and ordinary sense, directed at those with poor quality of the will, and then a detached sense and an extended sense, in which blame is aptly directed towards those without poor quality of the will as it is normally understood. In this essay I explore and critically discuss Mason's account. While I argue that she has (...) identified interesting aspects of the way in which we hold people morally responsible, I disagree with certain features of the account, in particular, that ordinary blame issues in demands and that there is any deep sense in which we can simply decide to take on responsibility. (shrink)

This commentary on Elinor Mason’s _Ways to be Blameworthy_ considers Mason’s proposed reflexivity constraint on ordinary blame- and praiseworthy action. I argue that the reflexivity constraint leaves too many intuitively apt targets of praise and blame out of the reach of those attitudes, and the availability of their detached counterparts does not make up for this. I also suggest that Mason’s case for the constraint is open to question. This gives us reasons to prefer a moral concern account of ordinary (...) or communicative praise- and blameworthiness, an account that does not include a reflexivity constraint. Finally, I argue that the moral concern view has more resources to explain some of the nuances and complexities of our practice of moral judgment than Mason allows—nuances Mason turned to pluralism to capture. (shrink)