To attain native-like competence, second language (L2) learners must establish mappings between familiar speech sounds and new phoneme categories. For example, Spanish learners of English must learn that [d] and [ð], which are allophones of the same phoneme in Spanish, can distinguish meaning in English (i.e. /deɪ/ ‘day’ and /ðeɪ/ ‘they’). Because adult listeners are less sensitive to allophonic than phonemic contrasts in their native language (L1), novel target language contrasts between L1 allophones may pose special difficulty for L2 learners. (...) We investigate whether advanced Spanish late-learners of English overcome native language mappings to establish new phonological relations between familiar phones. We report behavioral and magnetoencepholographic (MEG) evidence from two experiments that measured the sensitivity and pre-attentive processing of three listener groups (L1 English, L1 Spanish, and advanced Spanish late-learners of English) to differences between three nonword stimulus pairs ([idi]-[iði], [idi]-[iɾi], and [iði]-[iɾi]) which differ in phones that play a different functional role in Spanish and English. Spanish and English listeners demonstrated greater sensitivity (larger d’ scores) for nonword pairs distinguished by phonemic than by allophonic contrasts, mirroring previous findings. Spanish late-learners demonstrated sensitivity (large d’ scores and MMN responses) to all three contrasts, suggesting that these L2 learners may have established a novel [d]-[ð] contrast despite the phonological relatedness of these sounds in the L1. Our results suggest that phonological relatedness influences perceived similarity, as evidenced by the results of the native speaker groups, but may not cause persistent difficulty for advanced L2 learners. Instead, L2 learners are able to use cues that are present in their input to establish new mappings between familiar phones. (shrink)

Background There is ongoing debate regarding how moral distress should be defined. Some scholars argue that the standard “narrow” definition overlooks morally relevant causes of distress, while others argue that broadening the definition of moral distress risks making measurement impractical. However, without measurement, the true extent of moral distress remains unknown. Research aims To explore the frequency and intensity of five sub-categorizations of moral distress, resources used, intention to leave, and turnover of nurses using a new survey instrument. Research design (...) A mixed methods embedded design included a longitudinal, descriptive investigator-developed electronic survey with open-ended questions sent twice a week for 6 weeks. Analysis included descriptive and comparative statistics and content analysis of narrative data. Participants Registered nurses from four hospitals within one large healthcare system in Midwest United States. Ethical considerations IRB approval was obtained. Results 246 participants completed the baseline survey, 80 participants provided data longitudinally for a minimum of 3 data points. At baseline, moral-conflict distress occurred with the highest frequency, followed by moral-constraint distress and moral-tension distress. By intensity, the most distressing sub-category was moral-tension distress, followed by “other” distress and moral-constraint distress. Longitudinally, when ranked by frequency, nurses experienced moral-conflict distress, moral-constraint distress, and moral-tension distress; by intensity, scores were highest for moral-tension distress, moral-uncertainty distress, and moral-constraint distress. Of available resources, participants spoke with colleagues and senior colleagues more frequently than using consultative services such as ethics consultation. Conclusions Nurses experienced distress related to a number of moral issues extending beyond the traditional understanding of moral distress (as occurring due to a constraint) suggesting that our understanding and measurement of moral distress should be broadened. Nurses frequently used peer support as their primary resource but it was only moderately helpful. Effective peer support for moral distress could be impactful. Future research on moral distress sub-categories is needed. (shrink)

Extending ethical leadership theory and research beyond the walls of the organization, we propose a spillover model wherein ethical leaders impact customer loyalty (i.e., repeat purchase amount) by first establishing trusting relations with employees, who in turn emulate their leaders’ ethical behavior. In Study 1, we examined how this initial trust (i.e., trust primacy) facilitates new employees’ moral imprinting in a controlled experiment. In Study 2, with a field design, we tested our model among new employees and their respective customers (...) over a 6-month timespan. Results indicate that perceptions of ethical leadership operate through trust primacy to affect customer repeat purchase, with accelerated growth over time. We conclude by considering theoretical and practical implications as they relate to ethical leadership and trust primacy, as well as marketing and salesforce management. (shrink)

In light of the ongoing development and implementation of core competencies in bioethics, it is important to proceed with a clear sense of how bioethics knowledge is utilized in the functioning of hospital ethics committees (HECs). Without such an understanding, we risk building a costly edifice on a foundation that is ambiguous at best. This article examines the empirical relationship between traditional paradigms of bioethics theory and actual decision making by HEC members using survey data from HEC members. The assumption (...) underlying the standardization of qualifications and corresponding call for increased education of HEC members is that they will base imminent case decisions on inculcated knowledge. Our data suggest, however, that HEC members first decide intuitively and then look for justification, thereby highlighting the need to re-examine the pedagogical processes of ethics education in the process of standardizing and improving competencies. (shrink)

Humans, animals, and the environment face a universal crisis: antimicrobial resistance. Addressing AR and its multi-disciplinary causes across many sectors including in human and veterinary medicine remains underdeveloped. One barrier to AR efforts is an inconsistent process to incorporate the plenitude of stakeholders about what AR is and how to stifle its development and spread—especially stakeholders from the animal agriculture sector, one of the largest purchasers of antimicrobial drugs. In 2019, The Wellcome Trust released Reframing Resistance: How to communicate about (...) antimicrobial resistance effectively, which proposed the need to establish a consistent and harmonized messaging effort that describes the AR crisis and its global implications for health and wellbeing across all stakeholders. Yet, Reframing Resistance does not specifically engage the animal agriculture community. This study investigates the gap between two principles recommended by Reframing Resistance and animal agriculture stakeholders. For this analysis, the research group conducted 31 semi-structured interviews with a diverse group of United States animal agriculture stakeholders. Participants reported attitudes, beliefs, and practices about a variety of issues, including how they defined AR and what entities the AR crisis impacts most. Exploration of Reframing Resistance’s Principle 2, “explain the fundamentals succinctly” and Principle 3, “emphasis that this is universal issue; it can affect anyone, including you” reveals disagreement in both the fundamentals of AR and consensus of “who” the AR crisis impacts. Principle 2 may do better to acknowledge that animal agriculture stakeholders espouse a complex array of perspectives that cannot be summed up in a single perspective or principle. As a primary tool to combat AR, behavior change must be accomplished first through outreach to stakeholder groups and understanding their perspectives. (shrink)

Two experiments investigated the role that mental set plays in reading aloud using the task choice procedure developed by Besner and Care [Besner, D., & Care, S. . A paradigm for exploring what the mind does while deciding what it should do. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 57, 311–320]. Subjects were presented with a word, and asked to either read it aloud or decide whether it appeared in upper/lower case. Task information, in the form of a brief auditory cue, appeared (...) 750 ms before the word, or at the same time as the word. Experiment 1 yielded evidence consistent with the claim that at least some pre-lexical processing can be carried out in parallel with decoding the task cue . Experiment 2 provided evidence that such processing is restricted to pre-lexical levels . These data suggest that a task set is a necessary preliminary to lexical processing when reading aloud. (shrink)

The editors of the JRE solicited short essays on the COVID‐19 pandemic from a group of scholars of religious ethics that reflected on how the field might help them make sense of the complex religious, cultural, ethical, and political implications of the pandemic, and on how the pandemic might shape the future of religious ethics.

Recent research has pointed to the importance of the prenatal environment in the etiology of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but the biological mechanisms which mitigate these environmental factors are not clear. Mitochondrial metabolism abnormalities, inflammation and oxidative stress as common physiological disturbances associated with ASD. Network analysis of the scientific literature identified several leading prenatal environmental factors associated with ASD, particularly air pollution, pesticides, the microbiome and epigenetics. These leading prenatal environmental factors were found to be most associated with inflammation, (...) followed by oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction. Other prenatal factors associated with ASD not identified by the network analysis were also found to be significantly associated with these common physiological disturbances. A better understanding of the biological mechanism which mediate the effect of prenatal environmental factors can lead to insights of how ASD develops and the development of targeted therapeutics to prevent ASD from occuring. (shrink)

Anglo-American embodiments of poststructuralist and French feminism often align themselves with the texts of either Michel Foucault or Luce Irigaray. lnterrogating this alleged distance between Foucault and Irigaray, I show how it reinscrihes the phallic field of concepts and categories within feminist discourses. Framing both Foucault and Irigaray as exceeding]acques Lacan's metamorphosis of G.W.F. Hegel's Concept, I suggest that engaging their styles might yield richer tools for articulating the differences within our different lives.

Anglo-American embodiments of poststructuralist and French feminism often align themselves with the texts of either Michel Foucault or Luce Irigaray. Interrogating this alleged distance between Foucault and Irigaray, I show how it reinscribes the phallic field of concepts and categories within feminist discourses. Framing both Foucault and Irigaray as exceeding Jacques Lacan's metamorphosis of G.W.F. Hegel's Concept, I suggest that engaging their styles might yield richer tools for articulating the differences within our different lives.

This paper explores Simone de Beauvoir’s response to G. W. F. Hegel’s formulation of freedom. In The Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel describes freedom as a twofold, negative movement of dissolution and construction. Beauvoir takes up this distinction in terms of revolution and creative transformation, additionally describing two empty articulations of freedom found in “complaint” and “resignation.” In complaint, the existent is unable to transform the situation in a positive sense and simply reacts against it; in resignation, the existent merely submits (...) to the given. Through this analysis, Beauvoir moves beyond Hegelian optimism by naming modalities of ineffectual freedom requiring attention before the realization of social transformation and revolution. (shrink)

When soldiers come home from war, some experience lingering emotional effects from the choices they were forced to make, and the outcomes of these choices. In this article, we consider the gap between objective assessments of blame and subjective assessments of self-blame, guilt, and shame after war, and we suggest a way of understanding how soldiers can understand their moral responsibility from both of these vantage points. We examine arguments from just war theory regarding the objective moral responsibility of combatants (...) and consider the role moral luck plays in our assessment of moral responsibility. We then use P.F. Strawson’s account of the reactive attitudes to demonstrate the limitations of focusing excessively on the objective stance to determine the blameworthiness of soldiers. We argue that we should think about blame alongside moral emotions like guilt and shame, which will allow us to better understand subjective blame and the experiences of soldiers who blame themselves after war. We claim that objective determinations of heroism or responsibility do not adequately capture the complexity of moral emotions for soldiers returning home after war. As part of a shared moral community, civilians owe veterans more than automated responses based on the civilian experience. (shrink)

Hegel's understanding of why the state should be founded on religious values but not itself be influenced by religious piety or congregations is explored. There is some discussion of the tension between his philosophy and Prussian authorities in Berlin. Hegel's political liberalism appears to have compromised by both civil and religious authorities of his day.

A discussion of W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. I, The Earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans (xv/538 pp.); Vol. 11, The Presocratic Tradition from Parmenides to Democritus (xvii/553 pp.) Cambridge University Pres F. M. Cleve, The Giants of PreSophistic Greek Philosophy, An Attempt to Reconstruct Their Thoughts, Martinus Nijhoff D. E. Gershenson and D. A. Greenberg, Anaxagoras and the Birth of Physics, Blaisdell Publishing Company G. E. R. Lloyd, Polarity and Analogy, Cambridge University Press, 1966 (v/503 (...) pp.). (shrink)

Objective: Deep brain stimulation targeted to the ventral intermediate nucleus of the thalamus is effective for motor symptoms in essential tremor, but there is limited data on cognitive outcomes. We examined cognitive outcomes in a large cohort of ET DBS patients.Methods: In a retrospective analysis, we used repeated-measures ANOVA testing to examine whether the age of tremor onset, age at DBS surgery, hemisphere side implanted with lead, unilateral vs. bilateral implantations, and presence of surgical complications influenced the cognitive outcomes. Neuropsychological (...) outcomes of interest were verbal memory, executive functioning, working memory, language functioning, visuospatial functioning, and general cognitive function.Results: We identified 50 ET DBS patients; 29 males; the mean age of tremor onset was 35.84 years with a median age of 38 years. The mean age at DBS was 68.18 years. There were 37 unilateral 30 left, seven right, and 13 bilateral brain implantations. In the subgroup analysis, there was a significant interaction between assessment and age of tremor onset ; F = 4.47; p = 0.043 for working memory. The post hoc testing found improvements for younger onset ET. Similarly, there was a significant interaction between assessment and complications vs. no complications subgroups; F = 4.34; p = 0.043 for verbal memory with worsening scores seen for ET patients with complications. The remaining tests were not significant.Conclusion: In this large cohort of ET patients with, DBS was not accompanied by a significant decline in many cognitive domains. These outcomes were possibly related to the selection of patients with normal cognitive functioning before surgery, unilateral DBS implantations for the majority, and selection of patients with optimal response to DBS. (shrink)

Pour étendre la notion d'entropie, l'auteur tente de dégager la signification de la “probabilité relative” w de Boltzmann dans sa formule S = k.log.w. Celui-ci introduit implicitement une partition d'un ensemble E de molécules en classes d'équivalence, les divers états macroscopiques du gaz; w est le rapport de la probabilité de l'état dont on cherche à définir l'entropie à celle de l'état le plus improbable.L'auteur propose de généraliser le concept toutes les fois ob sur un ensemble probabilisable E il sera (...) possible de faire une partition.La “complexité d'une structure” peut être définie par le nombre d'aspects différents que peut prendre le graphe sous-jacent à celle-ci. Alors toute stricture a une probabilité d'occurrence, et l'on peut y définir une G-entropie.Appliquant ensuite ce concept à la théorie de l'information de Shannon, l'auteur montre que la quantité d'information apportée par un message est différente de la G-entropie, mais que les deux grandeurs y prennent fortuitement la même valeur. Le concept permet également d'introduire une information liée au message, une autre au “code”, et une information totale.Le concept d'émergence permet ensuite de comprendre la raison pour laquelle celle-ci s'accompagne d'une augmentation de G-neguentropie.L'entropie est considérée depuis Boltzmann comme une borne mesure du désordre d'un gaz, d'où son intérêt en morphogénèse, en théorie des systèmes, et de l'information. Cependant son application directe pose des problèmes, et il parait préférable de tenter auparavant de généraliser le concept en le randant plus abstrait. La première difficulté à laquelle on se heurte alors est l'interprétation du nombre w de la formule de Boltzmann. (shrink)

The concept of information tempts us as a theoretical primitive, partly because of the respectability lent to it by highly successful applications of Shannon’s information theory, partly because of its broad range of applicability in various domains, partly because of its neutrality with respect to what basic sorts of things there are. This versatility, however, is the very reason why information cannot be the theoretical primitive we might like it to be. “Information,” as it is variously used, is systematically (...) ambiguous between whether it involves continuous or discrete quantities, causal or noncausal relationships, and intrinsic or relational properties. Many uses can be firmly grounded in existing theory, however. Continuous quantities of information involving probabilities can be related to information theory proper. Information defined relative to systems of rules or conventions can be understood relative to the theory of meaning . A number of causal notions may possibly be located relative to standard notions in physics. Precise specification of these distinct properties involved in the common notion of information can allow us to map the relationships between them. Consequently, while information is not in itself the kind of single thing that can play a significant unifying role, analyzing its ambiguities may facilitate headway toward that goal. (shrink)

During the refereeing procedure of Anthropomorphic Quantum Darwinism by Thomas Durt, it became apparent in the dialogue between him and me that the definition of information in Physics is something about which not all authors agreed. This text aims at describing the concepts associated to information that are accepted as the standard in the Physics world community.

This article attempts to develop a theoretical approach to exploration of the environment, of intra-environmental information processes and mutually determinative relationships, and mode of being. Relying on the theoretical postulates of Gregory Bateson, the information theory of Claude Shannon, the concept of predictive processing, and Nikolai Ladovsky’s principle of economy of perception in architecture, the author seeks to show that the environment can act as an alternative mode to the subject for organizing experience. This interpretation of the concept of (...) environment can serve as a foundation for constructing an optics of inquiry that is not human-centric but at the same time could remain an optics of human inquiry. (shrink)

Motivation: Classical definitions of information, such as the Shannon information, are designed for open loop systems because they define information on a channel which has an input and an output. The main motivation of this paper is to present a closed loop information measure which is compatible with constructivist thinking. Design: Our information measure for a closed loop system reflects how additional sensor inputs are utilised to establish additional sensor-motor loops during learning. Our information measure is based on the (...) assumption that it is not optimal to stay reactive and that it is beneficial to become proactive through increased learning about the environment. Consequently our information measure gauges the utilisation of new sensor inputs to generate anticipatory actions. We call this information measure "predictive information" (PI). Findings: Our PI is zero if the organism uses only its reflex reactions. It grows when the organism is able to use other sensor inputs to preempt reflex reactions and is able to replace reflexes by anticipatory reactions. This has been demonstrated with a real robot that had to learn to avoid obstacles. Conclusion: PI is a new measure which is able to quantify anticipatory learning and, in contrast to the Shannon information, is calculated only at the inputs of an agent. This information measure has been successfully applied to a simple robot task but its application is neither limited to a certain task nor to a certain learning rule. (shrink)

A new information matrix [F] with elements F mn = 〈 (y m - a m )(y n - a n) (∂ ln p(y | a)/∂a m ) (∂ ln p(y | a)/∂a n ) 〉 is analyzed. The PDF p(y | a) is the usual likelihood law. [F] differs from the Fisher information matrix by the presence of the first two factors in the given expectation. These factors make F mn unitless, in contrast with the Fisher information. This lack (...) of units allows F mn values from entirely different phenomena to be compared as, for example, Shannon information values can be compared. Each element F mn defines an error inequality analogous to the Cramer-Rao inequality. In the scalar case F mn ≡ F, for a normal p(y|a) law F = 3, while for an exponential law F = 9. A variational principle F = min (called FMIN) allows an unknown PDF p(x) to be estimated in the presence of weak information. Under certain conditions F obeys a “Boltzmann F-theorem” ∂F/∂t ⩽ 0, indicating that F is a physical entropy. Finally, the trace ℱ of [F] may be used as the scalar information quantity in an information-based principle for deriving distribution laws p of physics. (shrink)

New technologies from artificial intelligence to drones, and biomedical enhancement make the future of the human family increasingly hard to predict and protect. This book explores how the philosophical tradition of virtue ethics can help us to cultivate the moral wisdom we need to live wisely and well with emerging technologies.

In our everyday social interactions, we try to make sense of what people are thinking, why they act as they do, and what they are likely to do next. This process is called mindreading. Mindreading, Shannon Spaulding argues in this book, is central to our ability to understand and interact with others. Philosophers and cognitive scientists have converged on the idea that mindreading involves theorizing about and simulating others’ mental states. She argues that this view of mindreading is limiting (...) and outdated. Most contemporary views of mindreading vastly underrepresent the diversity and complexity of mindreading. She articulates a new theory of mindreading that takes into account cutting edge philosophical and empirical research on in-group/out-group dynamics, social biases, and how our goals and the situational context influence how we interpret others’ behavior. -/- Spaulding's resulting theory of mindreading provides a more accurate, comprehensive, and perhaps pessimistic view of our abilities to understand others, with important epistemological and ethical implications. Deciding who is trustworthy, knowledgeable, and competent are epistemically and ethically fraught judgments: her new theory of mindreading sheds light on how these judgments are made and the conditions under which they are unreliable. -/- This book will be of great interest to students of philosophy of psychology, philosophy of mind, applied epistemology, cognitive science and moral psychology, as well as those interested in conceptual issues in psychology. (shrink)

This paper explores the ambiguous impact of new information and communications technologies on the cultivation of moral skills in human beings. Just as twentieth century advances in machine automation resulted in the economic devaluation of practical knowledge and skillsets historically cultivated by machinists, artisans, and other highly trained workers , while also driving the cultivation of new skills in a variety of engineering and white collar occupations, ICTs are also recognized as potential causes of a complex pattern of economic deskilling, (...) reskilling, and upskilling. In this paper, I adapt the conceptual apparatus of sociological debates over economic deskilling to illuminate a different potential for technological deskilling/upskilling, namely the ability of ICTs to contribute to the moral deskilling of human users, a potential that exists alongside rich but currently underrealized possibilities for moral reskilling and/or upskilling. I flesh out this general hypothesis by means of examples involving automated weapons technology, new media practices, and social robotics. I conclude that since moral skills are essential prerequisites for the effective development of practical wisdom and virtuous character, and since market and cultural forces are not presently aligned to bring about the more salutary of the ambiguous potentials presented here, the future shape of these developments warrants our close attention—and perhaps active intervention. (shrink)

Direct Social Perception (DSP) is the idea that we can non-inferentially perceive others’ mental states. In this paper, I argue that the standard way of framing DSP leaves the debate at an impasse. I suggest two alternative interpretations of the idea that we see others’ mental states: others’ mental states are represented in the content of our perception, and we have basic perceptual beliefs about others’ mental states. I argue that the latter interpretation of DSP is more promising and examine (...) the kinds of mental states that plausibly could satisfy this version of DSP. (shrink)

The 2017 codetection of electromagnetic radiation and gravitational waves was the first of its kind and marked the beginning of multimessenger astronomy. But this event has been treated within recent literature as something of an end as well. The 2017 detection is often regarded as an instance of falsification for all theories of modified gravity which postulate gravitational waves propagate along separate geodesics from electromagnetic radiation, perhaps most notably Jacob Bekenstein’s Tensor-Vector-Scalar gravity. I critically examine this explicit endorsement of falsification (...) by astronomers and astrophysicists. While the current state of multimetric modified gravity theories is dim, recent developments in multimessenger observation do not offer a deductive falsification. Rather such evidence should be regarded as a corroboration of the null hypothesis, following Deborah Mayo's error-statistical account. (shrink)

"I found this a fascinating book: wide-ranging, readable." —Alison Jaggar Bell shows how the flesh-and-blood female body engaged in sexual interaction for payment has no inherent meaning and is signified differently in different cultures ...

In the early twenty-first century, we stand on the threshold of welcoming robots into domains of human activity that will expand their presence in our lives dramatically. One provocative new frontier in robotics, motivated by a convergence of demographic, economic, cultural, and institutional pressures, is the development of “carebots”—robots intended to assist or replace human caregivers in the practice of caring for vulnerable persons such as the elderly, young, sick, or disabled. I argue here that existing philosophical reflections on the (...) ethical implications of carebots neglect a critical dimension of the issue: namely, the potential moral value of caregiving practices for caregivers. This value, I argue, gives rise to considerations that must be weighed alongside consideration of the likely impact of carebots on care recipients. Focusing on the goods internal to caring practices, I then examine the potential impact of carebots on caregivers by means of three complementary ethical approaches: virtue ethics, care ethics, and the capabilities approach. Each of these, I argue, sheds new light on the contexts in which carebots might deprive potential caregivers of important moral goods central to caring practices, as well as those contexts in which carebots might help caregivers sustain or even enrich those practices, and their attendant goods. (shrink)

The expression “continental rationalism” refers to a set of views more or less shared by a number of philosophers active on the European continent during the latter two thirds of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth. Rationalism is most often characterized as an epistemological position. On this view, to be a rationalist requires at least one of the following: (1) a privileging of reason and intuition over sensation and experience, (2) regarding all or most ideas as innate (...) rather than adventitious, (3) an emphasis on certain rather than merely probable knowledge as the goal of enquiry. While all of the continental rationalists meet one or more of these criteria, this is arguably the consequence of a deeper tie that binds them together—that is, a metaphysical commitment to the reality of substance, and, in particular, to substance as an underlying principle of unity. (shrink)

Recently, philosophers and psychologists defending the embodied cognition research program have offered arguments against mindreading as a general model of our social understanding. The embodied cognition arguments are of two kinds: those that challenge the developmental picture of mindreading and those that challenge the alleged ubiquity of mindreading. Together, these two kinds of arguments, if successful, would present a serious challenge to the standard account of human social understanding. In this paper, I examine the strongest of these embodied cognition arguments (...) and argue that mindreading approaches can withstand the best of these arguments from embodied cognition. (shrink)

Imagination seems to play an epistemic role in philosophical and scientific thought experiments, mindreading, and ordinary practical deliberations insofar as it generates new knowledge of contingent facts about the world. However, it also seems that imagination is limited to creative generation of ideas. Sometimes we imagine fanciful ideas that depart freely from reality. The conjunction of these claims is what I call the puzzle of knowledge through imagination. This chapter aims to resolve this puzzle. I argue that imagination has an (...) epistemic role to play, but it is limited to the context of discovery. Imagination generates ideas, but other cognitive capacities must be employed to evaluate these ideas in order for them to count as knowledge. Consideration of the Simulation Theory's so-called "threat of collapse” provides further evidence that imagination does not, on its own, yield new knowledge of contingent facts, and it suggests a way to supplement imagination in order to get such knowledge. (shrink)

Mirror neurons are widely regarded as an important key to social cognition. Despite such wide agreement, there is very little consensus on how or why they are important. The goal of this paper is to clearly explicate the exact role mirror neurons play in social cognition. I aim to answer two questions about the relationship between mirroring and social cognition: What kind of social understanding is involved with mirroring? How is mirroring related to that understanding? I argue that philosophical and (...) empirical considerations lead us to accord a fairly minimal role for mirror neurons in social cognition. (shrink)