Dual process theory proposes clusters of features that form two dichotomous groups in cognition. One standing internal issue is defining what the reference of these two dichotomous groups could be in the mind or brain. Does dual process theory speak of two systems, types, minds, modes, kinds or just metaphors? A particular common answer is that differences in clusters of features are evidence of different underlying systems, often called system 1 and system 2. However, the suggestion to abandon the ‘system’ (...) terminology is now common in the literature, but the consequences of doing so need to be addressed. This work reviews and critically discusses previous suggestions. (shrink)

Dual Process Theory is currently a popular theory for explaining why we show bounded rationality in reasoning and decision-making tasks. This theory proposes there must be a sharp distinction in thinking to explain two clusters of correlational features. One cluster describes a fast and intuitive process, while the other describes a slow and reflective one. A problem for this theory is identifying a common principle that binds these features together, explaining why they form a unity, the unity problem. To solve (...) it, a hypothesis is developed combining embodied predictive processing with symbolic classical approaches. The hypothesis, simplified, states that Type 1 processes are bound together because they rely on embodied predictive processing whereas Type 2 processes form a unity because they are accomplished by symbolic classical cognition. To show that this is likely the case, the features of Dual Process Theory are discussed in relation to these frameworks. (shrink)

The Global Workspace Theory (GWT) proposed by Bernard Baars (1988) along with Daniel Dennett’s (1991) Multiple Drafts Model (MDM) of consciousness are renowned cognitive theories of consciousness bearing similarities and differences. Although Dennett displays sympathy for GWT, his own MDM does not seem to be fully compatible with it. This work discusses this compatibility, by asking if GWT suffers from Daniel Dennett’s criticism of what he calls a “Cartesian Theater”. We identified in Dennett 10 requirements for avoiding the Cartesian Theater. (...) We believe that some of these requirements are violated by GWT, but not all, hence there is partial incompatibility with MDM, and it is nonsense to answer if GWT is or is not a Cartesian Theater. However, by asking such question we conclude that the issues around this discussion involve fuzzy claims about degrees of consciousness and we show how the Neuro-Astroglial Interaction Model (NAIM) is fit for solving such conceptual issues. (shrink)

In the last thirty years, a relatively large group of cognitive scientists have begun characterising the mind in terms of two distinct, relatively autonomous systems. To account for paradoxes in empirical results of studies mainly on reasoning, Dual Process Theories were developed. Such Dual Process Theories generally agree that System 1 is rapid, automatic, parallel, and heuristic-based and System 2 is slow, capacity-demanding, sequential, and related to consciousness. While System 2 can still be decently understood from a traditional cognitivist approach, (...) I will argue that it is essential for System 1 processing to be comprehended in an Embodied Embedded approach to Cognition. (shrink)

In the last thirty years, a relatively large group of cognitive scientists have begun characterising the mind in terms of two distinct, relatively autonomous systems. To account for paradoxes in empirical results of studies mainly on reasoning, Dual Process Theories were developed. Such Dual Process Theories generally agree that System 1 is rapid, automatic, parallel, and heuristic-based and System 2 is slow, capacity-demanding, sequential, and related to consciousness. While System 2 can still be decently understood from a traditional cognitivist approach, (...) I will argue that it is essential for System 1 processing to be comprehended in an Embodied Embedded approach to Cognition. (shrink)

Neste artigo, tratamos de um desafio lançado inicialmente por Derek Parfit contra a teoria da justiça de Rawls, que diz respeito ao problema da identidade pessoal e como isso pode se relacionar com os princípios distributivos da justiça. Acreditamos, como indicado por Paul Weithman, que tal problema desempenha um papel relevante na guinada política de Rawls – movimento pelo qual designamos as transformações em sua teoria do período de Uma Teoria da Justiça para o da publicação de Political Liberalism. O (...) próprio Weithman já forneceu uma análise acurada de como essa objeção, a qual daqui em diante nos referimos como a objeção do self parfitiano, minou a primeira tentativa de Rawls de mostrar como sua concepção de justiça seria estável. É provável, no entanto, que seja fácil perder o rumo desse debate, que foi de certa forma mediado por Samuel Scheffler. É por isso que fornecemos uma exposição cronológica desse debate na seção 1. Depois disso, na seção 2, reafirmamos o relato de Weithman de como o self parfitiano mina a estabilidade da concepção de justiça de Rawls em Uma Teoria da Justiça. Por fim, na seção 3, examinamos se essa dificuldade é devidamente tratada em Political Liberalism. Assim, sobretudo com este último passo, esperamos que esta abordagem possa acompanhar e complementar as contribuições anteriores de Weithman. (shrink)

When Thomas Jefferson placed 'the pursuit of happiness' along with life and liberty in The Declaration of Independence he was most likely referring to Aristotle's concept of happiness, or eudaimonia. Eudaimonia is not about good feelings but rather the fulfilment of human potentials. Fulfilment is made possible by virtue; the moderation of desire and emotion by reason. The Psychology of Happiness was the first book to bring together psychological, philosophical, and physiological theory and research in support of Aristotle's view. It (...) examines the similarity between Aristotle's concept of virtue and modern cognitive theories of emotion. It discusses the discovery of human potentials, the development of virtue and its neurological basis, the mistaken idea that fulfilment is selfish, and several other issues related to the pursuit of a good human life. (shrink)

If opera had existed in Elizabethan London, the world's Top Bard, as W.H. Auden called him, might have become the world's Top Librettist. As Gary Schmidgall shows in this illuminating study, Shakespeare's expressive ways and dramaturgical means are like those of composers and librettists in numerous and often astonishing ways. No wonder that well over two hundred operas have been based on Shakespeare's plays. Ranging widely through the Shakespearean canon and the standard operatic repertory, Schmidgall presents a fascinating comparison, focusing (...) on similarities of expressive style, scenic structure, staging, and performance practice. Shakespeare and Opera offers extended discussions of issues central to both theatrical genres, including their shared demand for virtuoso display, the comparable functions of set speeches and arias, and the similarities of verbal and musical rhetoric, and the charges of unreality and melodrama that have dogged them both. In addition, Schmidgall provides concise essays on the most intriguing Shakespeare-based operas, including works of Verdi, Wagner, Bellini, Rossini, Berlioz, Thomas, Vaughan Williams, Barber, and Britten. He enriches his argument with the insights of the great composers who never set Shakespeare (Mozart, Puccini, and Strauss among them), major observers of the legitimate stage (from Samuel Johnson to Eric Bentley) and the musical stage (from Joseph Addison to Joseph Kerman), as well as the incisive views of influential artists, critics, and performers as diverse as Walt Whitman, H.L. Mencken, and Laurence Olivier. For all who love the stage, Shakespeare and Opera offers endless insight and fascination. Schmidgall's extended comparison of the two dramaturgies provides a fresh perspective on Shakespeare, musical theater, comparative drama, and theater history. (shrink)

This chapter surveys the fate of Carl Schmitt’s concept of the political in twentieth-century European thought. It starts with the main outlines of his founding text The Concept of the Political, with emphasis on conceptual ambiguities in Schmitt’s argumentation that others would identify and exploit. It then turns to a recent debate about which young German Jew—Hans Morgenthau or Leo Strauss—most influenced the revisions Schmitt made to his text between editions, concluding that the role of both has been overstated. The (...) balance of the chapter reconstructs an alternative—and in some ways opposed—French tradition of conceptualizing the political with roots in the thought of Raymond Aron. Culminating in Claude Lefort, this tradition decentered the role of enmity that Schmitt wanted to define the political, a point dramatized in conclusion with discussion of international relations theory and how the French tradition conceived of warfare and strife. (shrink)

Using the corpus of JSTOR articles, we investigate the role of gender in collaboration patterns across the scholarly landscape by analyzing gender-based homophily--the tendency for researchers to co-author with individuals of the same gender. For a nuanced analysis of gender homophily, we develop methodology necessitated by the fact that the data comprises heterogeneous sub-disciplines and that not all authorships are exchangeable. In particular, we distinguish three components of gender homophily in collaborations: a structural component that is due to demographics and (...) non-gendered authorship norms of a scholarly community, a compositional component which is driven by varying gender representation across sub-disciplines, and a behavioral component which we define as the remainder of observed homophily after its structural and compositional components have been taken into account. Using minimal modeling assumptions, we measure and test for behavioral homophily. We find that significant behavioral homophily can be detected across the JSTOR corpus and show that this finding is robust to missing gender indicators in our data. In a secondary analysis, we show that the proportion of female representation in a field is positively associated with significant behavioral homophily. (shrink)

End-of-life decision making is fraught with ethical challenges. Withholding or withdrawing life support therapy is widely considered ethical in patients with high treatment burden, poor premorbid status, or significant projected disability even when such treatment is not ?futile.? Whether such withdrawal of therapy in the aftermath of attempted suicide is ethical is not well established in the literature. We provide a clinical vignette and propose criteria under which such withdrawal would be ethical. We suggest that it is appropriate to withdraw (...) life support, regardless of the cause of the critical illness or disability, when the following criteria are met: (1) Surrogates request withdrawal of care and the adequacy of surrogates is confirmed, (2) an external reasonability standard is met, (3) passage of time, perhaps 72 hours, to allow certainty regarding the patient's wishes, and (4) psychiatric morbidity should be considered as grounds for withdrawal only in truly treatment-refractory cases. Fundamentally, we believe the question to ask is, ?If this were not an attempted suicide, would a request to withdraw care be reasonable?? We believe that under these circumstances, such withdrawal of life support, even in an individual who has attempted suicide, does not constitute physician assistance with suicide and is distinct from physician aid-in-dying in several important respects. (shrink)

We routinely observe others’ choices and use them to guide our own. Whose choices influence us more, and why? Prior work has focused on the effect of perceived similarity between two individuals, such as the degree of overlap in past choices or explicitly recognizable group affiliations. In the real world, however, any dyadic relationship is part of a more complex social structure involving multiple social groups that are not directly observable. Here we suggest that human learners go beyond dyadic similarities (...) in choice behaviors or explicit group memberships; they infer the structure of social influence by grouping individuals based on choices, and they use these groups to decide whose choices to follow. We propose a computational model that formalizes this idea, and we test the model predictions in a series of behavioral experiments. In Experiment 1, we reproduce a well-established finding that people's choices are more likely to be influenced by someone whose past choices are more similar to their own past choices, as predicted by our model as well as dyadic similarity models. In Experiments 2–5, we test a set of unique predictions of our model by looking at cases where the degree of choice overlap between individuals is equated, but their choices indicate a latent group structure. We then apply our model to prior empirical results on infants’ understanding of others’ preferences, presenting an alternative account of developmental changes. Finally, we discuss how our model relates to classical findings in the social influence literature and the theoretical implications of our model. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that structure learning is a powerful framework for explaining the influence of social information on decision making in a variety of contexts. (shrink)

If p is false, it isn't evidence for anything. This view is central in one important response to a familiar sceptical argument. I consider and reject various motivations for refusing to accept this view – proposals arising from, e.g., our practice of providing rationalising explanations of people's beliefs, various locutions appearing to relativise evidence to persons, the significance of people's mental states for attributions of reasons to them, and the role of evidence in epistemic principles and requirements. I close by (...) considering responses to the ‘New Evil Demon Argument’. What emerges is an affirmation of the principle that p doesn't provide evidence unless it is true, a response to an important version of the Evil Demon argument for scepticism, and also a deeper interpretation of our epistemic practice. (shrink)

Guided by an account of the norms governing justificatory conversations, I propose that person-level epistemic justification is a matter of possessing a certain ability: the ability to provide objectively good reasons for one's belief by drawing upon considerations which one responsibly and correctly takes there to be no reason to doubt. On this view, justification requires responsible belief and is also objectively truth-conducive. The foundationalist doctrine of immediately justified beliefs is rejected, but so too is the thought that coherence in (...) one's total belief system is sufficient, or indeed necessary, for justification. The problem of the regress is solved by exploiting the 'localist' idea that in order to possess the ability to justify any given belief, one only needs to be in a position to draw upon appropriate justified background beliefs to provide good reasons for holding the belief; one needn't be able to defend the relevant background beliefs, and so on, all at one sitting. (shrink)

Religions that center around a revelation--around a 'good book,' like the Torah or Gospels or Quran, which is seen as God's word--are widely regarded as irrational and dangerous: as based on outdated science and conducive to illiberal, inhumane moral attitudes. The Good and the Good Book defends revealed religion and shows how it can be reconciled with science and liberal morality. Fleischacker argues that revealed texts aim to teach neither scientific nor moral doctrines but a vision of what life is (...) about overall. Purely naturalistic ways of thinking cannot make much sense of our overall or ultimate good; revealed texts, by contrast, do precisely that. But these texts also need to be interpreted so as to accord with our independent understanding of morality. The delicate balance required for this process of interpretatio is discussed at some length. The book concludes with an account of how believers in one religion can respect believers in other religions, and secular people. (shrink)

Modern-day heirs of the Cartesian revolution have been fascinated by the thought that one could utilize certain hypotheses – that one is dreaming, deceived by an evil demon, or a brain in a vat – to argue at one fell swoop that one does not know, is not justified in believing, or ought not believe most if not all of what one currently believes about the world. A good part of the interest and mystique of these discussions arises from the (...) contention that the seeds of such arguments lie in our ordinary epistemic practices, so that external world skepticism can arise “from within”. But is this contention correct? I doubt it. Taking skepticism seriously requires that we address this question head on. To do so, I will approach skeptical arguments from a certain vantage point. I will try to stand, as far as possible, with both feet squarely in ordinary life. I will start out with all of our ordinary commitments about what is the case, about what we know or have reason to believe, about when someone knows, is justified, or has good reason to believe something, and about how one should proceed in deciding what to believe. My question, then, will be this. From within that vantage point can I somehow be moved in a reasonable way to accept the conclusion that I know far less about the world around me than I thought, or that epistemically speaking, I really ought not believe much of what I have believed about the world around me? In order for such movement to take place, I will have to find reason from within my ordinary standpoint to discount or reject much of what I ordinarily accept. And of course, that reason will have to come from some.. (shrink)

One of the more interesting philosophical debates in the seventeenth century concerned the nature and explanation of qualities. In order to understand these debates, it is important to place them in their proper historical-philosophical context. This book chapter starts with theoretical background in the work of Aristotle and the atomists, and then moves on to survey various theories of motion and rest, light, color, and sound, as well as the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, as represented in the work (...) of such figures as Berkeley, Boyle, Charleton, Cordemoy, Descartes, Desgabets, Galileo, Gassendi, Hobbes, Locke, Malebranche, Newton, Régis, Rohault, and Sennert. (shrink)

Miller, Truog, and Brock have recently argued that the “dead donor rule,” the requirement that donors be determined to be dead before vital organs are procured for transplantation, cannot withstand ethical scrutiny. In their view, the dead donor rule is inconsistent with existing life-saving practices of organ transplantation, lacks a cogent ethical rationale, and is not necessary for maintenance of public trust in organ transplantation. In this paper, the second of these claims will be evaluated. (The first and third are (...) not addressed.) The claim that the dead donor rule lacks a cogent ethical rationale will be shown to be an expression of the contemporary rejection of the moral significance of the traditional distinction between killing and allowing to die. The moral significance of this traditional distinction, and the associated norm that doctors should not kill their patients, will be defended, and this critique of it shown to be unsuccessful. (shrink)

This absorbing intellectual history vividly recreates the unique social, political, and philosophical milieu in which the extraordinary promise of Einstein and scientific contemporaries took root and flourished into greatness. Feuer shows us that no scientific breakthrough really happens by chance; it takes a certain intellectual climate, a decisive tension within the very fabric of society, to spur one man's potential genius into world-shaking achievement. Feuer portrays such men of high imaginative powers as Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, de Broglie, influenced by and (...) influencing the social worlds in which they lived. (shrink)

DeRose appeals to ordinary English usage to support his contextualist semantics for "know"-attributions. A common objection holds that though the relevant assertions are both appropriate and seemingly true, their seeming truth arises merely from their appropriateness. This Warranted Assertability Maneuver (WAM) aims to provide a stand-alone objection by providing a reason not to take the ordinary language data at face-value. However, there is no plausible model or mechanism for the pragmatic phenomena WAMmers must postulate. Given what the WAM requires, it (...) is doubtful it could work out in detail. (shrink)

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of socially responsible funds in Sweden by assessing fund managers' abilities and performances across different market states. These issues are analyzed at the aggregate and individual fund levels. The paper also presents several new statistical tests that allow more precise inferences about differences in performance and the variability in fund returns arising from different benchmarks. In general, SR and conventional funds perform similarly to the market. At the aggregate level, SR funds investing in Sweden (...) and Europe perform similarly to conventional funds, while those investing globally tend to underperform. This underperformance seems to be linked with poor selectivity abilities of global SR fund managers. For individual funds, the performance of both types of funds is more similar. Most funds perform similarly in crisis periods compared to non-crisis periods. Overall, our results are consistent with a mature market for SR investing and support the view that the similar performance of SR and conventional funds is associated with the mainstreaming of SR investment in Sweden. These findings encourage SR investing both by socially conscious investors, who wish to align their social values with their investment decisions, as well as by conventional investors, who will not be penalized by investing in these funds. We also call attention to the difficulties investors face when trying to identify funds with high social standards, considering that there is scarce information on the extent to which each fund holds stocks that comply with ethical and social criteria. (shrink)

In ordinary circumstances in which we know there is a goldfinch on a branch in the garden, do we know that the thing on the branch isn’t stuffed? Austin’s methodology is perfectly compatible with holding both that we do and that we wouldn’t know it’s a goldfinch if we didn’t. Moreover, Austin’s methodology supports the claim that if we had no information whatsoever about whether it is stuffed, we wouldn’t know the thing on the branch is a goldfinch. Finally, Mark (...) Kaplan’s claim that P is part of your evidence if and only if you know that P leaves him with good reason to agree that in ordinary circumstances, you do know that the goldfinch isn’t stuffed. This result suggests a distinctive way of approaching arguments for external world skepticism with the structure of the so-called Argument from Ignorance. And it highlights just how much can be learned from approaching epistemological issues in an Austinian spirit. (shrink)

RESUMO: O objetivo deste artigo é examinar o que entendemos ser uma prova original da existência de Deus na obra de Pierre Duhem. Cremos que a originalidade dessa prova consiste especialmente nas premissas usadas pelo filósofo. Quanto à forma, a mesma assemelha-se ao conhecido argumento do desígnio, mas a sua versão se caracteriza por buscar na história das teorias físicas a matéria da qual a existência de uma Providência é derivada. É a complexa evolução das teorias e, a despeito dela, (...) a sua espantosa progressividade em direção a estágios sempre mais perfeitos que servem de premissa para a via duhemiana de acesso a Deus. Tudo se passa como se houvesse uma suposta pré-ordenação divina do curso das teorias, uma finalidade intrínseca a ele. ABSTRACT: The aim of this paper is to examine what we believe to be an original proof of the existence of God in the work of Pierre Duhem. We think that the originality of this proof consists especially in the assumptions used by the French philosopher in his argumentation. Regarding the form, it resembles the well-known design argument, but his version is characterized by seeking in the history of physical theories the matter from which the existence of a Providence is derived. It is the complex evolution of theories and, despite it, its amazing progress towards ever more perfect theories that serves as the premise for Duhem's way of access to God. Everything goes as if it had been a divine preordainment and an intrinsic goal ruling the evolution of theories. (shrink)

The debate between the “Transcendental” and “Neo-” Thomists is an ongoing concern. Specifically, Jeremy Wilkins and John F.X. Knasas differ sharply over the correct interpretation of St. Thomas, Bernard Lonergan, and the very nature of cognition itself (ACPQ 78 [2004]). This debate is clouded, however, due to a lack of appreciation for key terms, specifically, “sensation” and Lonergan’s own phrase “the notion of being.” Using the distinction between precisive and non-precisive abstraction, the author clarifies the relevant sense of “sensation” and (...) its related concepts. The clarification reveals that Wilkins and Knasas use such terms in markedly different, though compatible ways. Second, the notion of being as it is presented in various texts of Lonergan is examined. Contrary to what is supposed by Knasas, the notion of being, for Lonergan, contributes no formal or constitutive element to human knowing, and is in fact a pure potency with respect to intelligibility. Accordingly, any concerns or charges of crypto-Kantianism with respect to Lonergan are unfounded. (shrink)

Resenha do livro: MOLETTA, Alex. Fazendo cinema na escola: arte audiovisual dentro e fora da sala de aula.

This volume is the first part of a larger work on the philosophy of Solomon Maimon and its systematic place in the history of thought. Here we deal with so me of the fundamental themes of Maimon's philosophy, including his examination of Kant's philosophy, his re lation to such immediate post-Kantians as Reinhold and Schulze, and the relation between him and Fichte. The second volume will concern itself with such aspects of Maimon's theoretical philosophy as the prob lem of the (...) categories, the relation between idea and fiction, the concept of a universal soul, and practical philosophy, that is, ethics and the philosophy of law. Chapters V, VII, and X of this volume contain, with substantial revisions in form and content, material that appeared originally in scholarly periodicals. Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Hebrcw Union College A nnual for permission to use the substance of my articles: "Solomon Maimon's Treatment of the Problems of Antinomies and Its Relation to Maimonides," H.U.C.A., Vol. XXI; "Maimon and Mai monides," H.U.C.A., Vol. XXII, part one; and to the Journal 0/ the History 0/ I deas, for permission to use the substance of my essay "Solomon Maimon's Doctrine of Infinite Reason and Its Historical Relations," J.H.I., Vol. XIII, No. 2. (shrink)

A familiar form of scepticism supposes that knowledge requires infallibility. Although that requirement plays no role in our ordinary epistemic practices, Barry Stroud has argued that this is not a good reason for rejecting a sceptical argument: our ordinary practices do not correctly reflect the requirements for knowledge because the appropriateness-conditions for knowledge attribution are pragmatic. Recent fashion in contextualist semantics for 'knowledge' agrees with this view of our practice, but incorrectly. Ordinary epistemic evaluations are guided by our conception of (...) a person's standing with regard to the reasons that there are for and against the truth of a belief. Thus the objection from our ordinary practices is sound: fallibility is not an epistemological shortcoming, and a convincing sceptical argument must use only requirements which figure in ordinary epistemic practice. (shrink)