We regularly make graded normative judgements in the epistemic domain. Recent work in the literature examines degrees of justification, degrees of rationality, and degrees of assertability. This paper addresses a different dimension of the gradeability of epistemic normativity, one that has been given little attention. How should we understand degrees of epistemic criticizability? In virtue of what sorts of factors can one epistemic failing be worse than another? The paper develops a dual-factor view of degrees (...) of epistemic criticizability. According to the view, degrees of epistemic criticizability are (i) an inverse function of degrees of doxastic justification and (ii) a function of degrees of agent culpability. The paper develops an account of each factor, and explains how they should be weighted. The paper also addresses the importance of modelling degrees of epistemic criticizability in a broader context. I focus on the role that such a model can play in the ethics of epistemic criticism. (shrink)

I argue that the personhood of a fetus is analogous to the the heap. If this is correct, then the moral status or intrinsic value of a fetus would be supervenient upon the fetus's biological development. Yet to compare its claim vis-a-vis its mother's, we need to consider not only their moral status, but also the type of claim they each have. Thus we have to give weight to the two factors or variables of the mother's moral status and her (...) claim to some lesser good . And then we have to consider the fetus's lesser moral status and its claim to some greater good, namely, life. I argue that we do not know how to compare these two-variable claims. This also explains why the central cases of abortion have been so difficult to resolve. I suggest that the problem of animal rights has a similar structure. (shrink)

A down-to-earth admission of abstract objects can be based on detailed explanation of where the objectivity of mathematics comes from, and how a ‘thin’ notion of object emerges from objective mathematical discourse or practices. We offer a sketch of arguments concerning both points, as a basis for critical scrutiny of the idea that mathematical and social objects are essentially of the same kind—which is criticized. Some authors have proposed that mathematical entities are indeed institutional objects, a product of our collective (...) imposition of function onto reality (the phrase comes from Searle) and of surrogation or hypostasis. Yet there are significant disanalogies between the typical social objects and mathemata, on which basis I argue that one should make a clear distinction between both. The comparison of mathematical with social objects helps understanding how non-physical objects can figure prominently in our explanations of reality. Yet mathematical objects have a different kind of cognitive grounding, and the more elementary of them emerge under relatively very simple sociocultural conditions. The differences are also reflected in the wide scope of use of mathematical concepts, and the much higher degree of variation found among social objects. On the basis of all of these features, I defend the thesis that one can significantly distinguish degrees of objectivity, and I use the distinction to articulate a graded ontology where one can locate the different kinds of mathematical and social objects. (shrink)

A framework of degrees of belief, or credences, is often advocated to model our uncertainty about how things are or will turn out. It has also been employed in relation to the kind of uncertainty or indefiniteness that arises due to vagueness, such as when we consider “a is F” in a case where a is borderline F. How should we understand degrees of belief when we take into account both these phenomena? Can the right kind of theory (...) of the semantics of vagueness help us answer this? Nicholas J.J. Smith defends a unified account, according to which “degree of belief is expected truth-value”; this builds on his Degree Theory of vagueness that offers an account of the semantics and logic of vagueness in terms of degrees of truth. I argue that his account fails. Degree theories of vagueness do not help us understand degrees of belief and, I argue, we shouldn’t expect a theory of vagueness to yield a detailed uniform story about this. The route from the semantics to psychological states needn’t be straightforward or uniform even before we attempt to combine vagueness with probabilistic uncertainty. (shrink)

The University of Michigan conference “Where Religion, Policy, and Bioethics Meet: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Islamic Bioethics and End-of-Life Care” in April 2011 addressed the issue of brain death as the prototype for a discourse that would reflect the emergence of Islamic bioethics as a formal field of study. In considering the issue of brain death, various Muslim legal experts have raised concerns over the lack of certainty in the scientific criteria as applied to the definition and diagnosis of brain (...) death by the medical community. In contrast, the medical community at large has not required absolute certainty in its process, but has sought to eliminate doubt through cumulative diagnostic modalities and supportive scientific evidence. This has recently become a principal model, with increased interest in data analysis and evidence-based medicine with the intent to analyze and ultimately improve outcomes. Islamic law has also long employed a systematic methodology with the goal of eliminating doubt from rulings regarding the question of certainty. While ample criticism of the scientific criteria of brain death (Harvard criteria) by traditional legal sources now exists, an analysis of the legal process in assessing brain death, geared toward informing the clinician’s perspective on the issue, is lacking. In this article, we explore the role of certainty in the diagnostic modalities used to establish diagnoses of brain death in current medical practice. We further examine the Islamic jurisprudential approach vis-à-vis the concept of certainty (yaqīn). Finally, we contrast the two at times divergent philosophies and consider what each perspective may contribute to the global discourse on brain death, understanding that the interdependence that exists between the theological, juridical, ethical, and medical/scientific fields necessitates an open discussion and active collaboration between all parties. We hope that this article serves to continue the discourse that was successfully begun by this initial interdisciplinary endeavor at the University of Michigan. (shrink)

An examination of leibniz's doctrines of expressive degrees of perception suggest on textual grounds that representations are characterized as more or less 'distinct' or 'confused' in three different senses, Corresponding to the scope of content represent"ed", The degree of awareness accompanying the represent"ing" of that content, And the internal articulation of the idea expressed by such a representation. Following leibniz's rationalistic strategy of explaining representation in terms of inference permits a unified interpretation of these varieties of distinctness of perception (...) and ideas and hence of the phenomena they explain: causal interaction, Sensations and sensory phantasm, And understanding. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:September 24, 2010 (10:17 pm) C:\Users\Milt\Desktop\backup copy of Ken's G\WPData\TYPE3001\russell 30,1 032 red corrected.wpd 1 Just what exactly “separated by degree” means is a bone of contention among those playing the game. But it seems to me that if you have actually met a person Xz, then you have knowledge by acquaintance of X, whereas if you meet someone who met Xz you are separated from Xz by one (...) degree. Thus, I never met the jazz great Sun Ra, but my friend Warren Allen Smith (former head of a recording studio) worked with him on several of his albums, so I am one degree of separation from Sun Ra. russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s. 30 (summer 2010): 63–7 The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. issn 0036-01631 eu d’sprit “SIX DEGREES OF BERTRAND RUSSELL” Timothy J. Madigan Philosophy / St. John Fisher College Rochester, ny 14618, usa [email protected] One of the most quoted phrases in current popular culture is “six degrees of separation”. It expresses the idea that any human being is connected with any other human being by a chain of at most six acquaintances.1 While there is much debate as to whether this is literally true, it is an interesting thoughtexperiment, as well as the basis for many fun parlour games. One of these is entitled “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”, in which Wlm fans try to connect the aforementioned actor with any other movie star in as few links as possible. I have been thinking of launching a similar parlour game called “Six Degrees of Bertrand Russell”, in which any Wgure from the past 200 years or so could be connected with Bertie in as few steps as possible. Why Bertie rather than, say, Ludwig Wittgenstein (who after all had a stated interest in games)? For two reasons: Wrst, Russell lived to the ripe old age of 97, and thus had the time to interact with a wide variety of people; and secondly he was for most of that long life a celebrity, who rubbed elbows with all manner of individuals, many of whom were either celebrities themselves at the time or came to be celebrated later. As is often pointed out, Russell’s list of acquaintances stretched from Lenin (V.yI.) to Lennon (zJohn), from the Bloomsbury Group to the Doomsday Prophets, from William Gladstone to Harold Wilson. Russell’s grandfather, LordJohn Russell, had as a young man visited Napoleon on the island of Elba and shaken his hand. When I shake the hand of Honorary Russell Archivist Ken Blackwell, September 24, 2010 (10:17 pm) C:\Users\Milt\Desktop\backup copy of Ken's G\WPData\TYPE3001\russell 30,1 032 red corrected.wpd 64 timothy j. madigan 2 Other historical writings by Russell are discussed in Kenneth R. Stunkel, “Bertrand Russell’s Writings and ReXections on History”, Russellz 21 (2001): 129–53. who met Bertie, I often think that I am only three degrees of separation from shaking Napoleon’s hand as well. And as for Napoleonz—zwell, who knows where that hand had been? Given this strong connection to history, it is not surprising that Russell himself would write an essay entitled “How to Read and Understand History”.2 In his Autobiographyz and other works such as Portraits from Memory, Russell made it quite clear that his aristocratic and privileged background gave him access to many of the most important movers and shakers in twentieth-century politics, literature, and academia, areas in which he himself excelled. He was aware that, unlike many of his fellow philosophers, who were known only to a small coterie of fellow deep thinkers, he was an historic Wgure, one who could interact on a personal level with cabinet ministers, Nobel prize-winners in all Welds, press lords, movie stars, presidents and premiers. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, for instance, many concerned individuals tried to reach Kennedy and Khrushchev to give them advice, but Russell was one of the few outsiders whose letters actually got through, as he no doubt knew they would. For all of his concern with... (shrink)

_Distinguer pour unir, ou Les degrés du savoir_ was first published in 1932 by Jacques Maritain. In this new translation of _The Degrees of Knowledge_, Ralph McInerny attempts a more careful expression of Maritain's original masterpiece than previous translations. Maritain proposes a hierarchy of the forms of knowledge by discussing the degrees of rational and suprarational understanding. Nine appendices, some longer than the chapters of the book, advance Maritain's thought, often by taking on criticism of earlier editions (...) of the work. Rightly called Maritain's cardinal work, _The Degrees of Knowledge_ is a magnificent and sagacious achievement. Jacques Maritain's masterpiece proposes a hierarchy of forms of knowledge that culminate in mystical experience and wisdom, which is a gift of the Holy Ghost. Maritain argues that the intellectual life is meant to be complemented by the spiritual life and should culminate in sanctity. (shrink)

A generic computation of a subsetAof ℕ is a computation which correctly computes most of the bits ofA, but which potentially does not halt on all inputs. The motivation for this concept is derived from complexity theory, where it has been noticed that frequently, it is more important to know how difficult a type of problem is in the general case than how difficult it is in the worst case. When we study this concept from a recursion theoretic point of (...) view, to create a transitive relationship, we are forced to consider oracles that sometimes fail to give answers when asked questions. Unfortunately, this makes working in the generic degrees quite difficult. Indeed, we show that generic reduction is$\Pi _1^1$―complete. To help avoid this difficulty, we work with the generic degrees of density-1 reals. We demonstrate how an understanding of these degrees leads to a greater understanding of the overall structure of the generic degrees, and we also use these density-1 sets to provide a new a characterization of the hyperartithmetical Turing degrees. (shrink)

In this paper a new property of theories, called effective retractability is introduced and used to obtain a characterization for the degrees of subtheories of arithmetic and set theory. By theory we understand theory in standard formalization as defined by Tarski [10]. The word degree refers to the Kleene-Post notion of degree of recursive unsolvability [2]. By the degree of a theory we mean, of course, the degree associated with its decision problem via Gödel numbering.

In this essay, I argue that F.H. Bradley’s controversial theory of “degrees of truth and reality” is the logical development of Hegel’s own theory of truth when it is placed within the metaphysical system of the Science of Logic. Despite Bradley’s own claim that with regards to the theory of degrees of truth and reality he is indebted even more than anywhere else to Hegel, this connection has been little examined in the secondary literature. Through a careful examination (...) of both Bradley’s works and the structure of Hegel’s logic, it will become clear that Bradley’s development of the theory is the only logical conclusion that the consistent Hegelian can make. This essay has clear ramifications for our understanding of Bradley’s philosophy and, through uncovering the logical connections that led Bradley to develop the theory, I reveal an important implication of Hegel’s thought that has been entirely overlooked. (shrink)

Descartes’ version of the Cosmological Argument in the Third Meditation is usually considered a failure, not because its conclusion doesn't follow from its premises, but because the truth of two of its premises is doubtful. One of these premises is that the objective reality of an idea is derived from a cause in which there is at least as much formal reality; the other, that only a being that possesses the qualities normally attributed to God could be responsible for the (...) idea of God. Typically there are two objections made in response to the first of these premises. First, we don't understand the concepts of formal and objective reality well enough to know whether or not the premise commands our assent. (shrink)

Methods of improving the state and rate of progress within the domain of philosophy using collective intelligence systems are considered. By applying mASI systems superintelligence, debiasing, and humanity’s current sum of knowledge may be applied to this domain in novel ways. Such systems may also serve to strongly facilitate new forms and degrees of cooperation and understanding between different philosophies and cultures. The integration of these philosophies directly into their own machine intelligence seeds as cornerstones could further serve (...) to reduce existential risk while improving both ethical quality and performance. (shrink)

Methods of improving the state and rate of progress within the domain of philosophy using collective intelligence systems are considered. By applying mASI systems superintelligence, debiasing, and humanity’s current sum of knowledge may be applied to this domain in novel ways. Such systems may also serve to strongly facilitate new forms and degrees of cooperation and understanding between different philosophies and cultures. The integration of these philosophies directly into their own machine intelligence seeds as cornerstones could further serve (...) to reduce existential risk while improving both ethical quality and performance. (shrink)

The paper argues that an account of understanding should take the form of a Carnapian explication and acknowledge that understanding comes in degrees. An explication of objectual understanding is defended, which helps to make sense of the cognitive achievements and goals of science. The explication combines a necessary condition with three evaluative dimensions: An epistemic agent understands a subject matter by means of a theory only if the agent commits herself sufficiently to the theory of the (...) subject matter, and to the degree that the agent grasps the theory (i.e., is able to make use of it), the theory answers to the facts and the agent’s commitment to the theory is justified. The threshold for outright attributions of understanding is determined contextually. The explication has descriptive as well as normative facets and allows for the possibility of understanding by means of non-explanatory (e.g., purely classificatory) theories. (shrink)

Distinguer pour unir, ou Les degres du savoir was first published in 1932 by Jacques Maritain. In this new translation of The Degrees of Knowledge, Ralph McInerny attempts a more careful expression of Maritain's original masterpiece than previous translations. Maritain proposes a hierarchy of the forms of knowledge by discussing the degrees of rational and suprarational understanding. Nine appendices, some longer than the chapters of the book, advance Maritain's thought, often by taking on criticism of earlier editions (...) of the work. Rightly called Maritain's cardinal work, The Degrees of Knowledge is a magnificent and sagacious achievement. Jacques Maritain's masterpiece proposes a hierarchy of forms of knowledge that culminate in mystical experience and wisdom, which is a gift of the Holy Ghost. Maritain argues that the intellectual life is meant to be complemented by the spiritual life and should culminate in sanctity. (shrink)

Tsuda examines the potential contribution of nonlinear dynamical systems, with many degrees of freedom, to understanding brain function. We offer suggestions concerning symmetry and transients to strengthen the physiological motivation and theoretical consistency of this novel research direction: Symmetry plays a fundamental role, theoretically and in relation to real brains. We also highlight a distinction between chaotic “transience” and “itineracy.”.

The concept of a hypersoft membership function is introduced in the extension of a soft set known as a hypersoft set, permitting it to handle complicated and uncertain information in a more powerful and flexible manner. Many academics have already become fascinated with this new area of study, leading to the development of a number of hybrid structures. This chapter develops some new hybrid hypersoft set structures by taking into account multiple fuzzy set-like settings and possibility degree-based settings collectively. Additionally, (...) numerical examples are included to clarify the concept of these structures. Researchers can utilize this work to better understand and apply a variety of mathematical ideas. (shrink)

The paper argues that an account of understanding should take the form of a Carnapian explication and acknowledge that understanding comes in degrees. An explication of objectual understanding is defended, which helps to make sense of the cognitive achievements and goals of science. The explication combines a necessary condition with three evaluative dimensions: an epistemic agent understands a subject matter by means of a theory only if the agent commits herself sufficiently to the theory of the (...) subject matter, and to the degree that the agent grasps the theory (i.e., is able to make use of it), the theory answers to the facts and the agent’s commitment to the theory is justified. The threshold for outright attributions of understanding is determined contextually. The explication has descriptive as well as normative facets and allows for the possibility of understanding by means of non-explanatory (e.g., purely classificatory) theories. (shrink)

This paper deals with a number of technical achievements that are instrumental for a dis-solution of the so-called "Hole Argument" in general relativity. Such achievements include: 1) the analysis of the "Hole" phenomenology in strict connection with the Hamiltonian treatment of the initial value problem. The work is carried through in metric gravity for the class of Christoudoulou-Klainermann space-times, in which the temporal evolution is ruled by the "weak" ADM energy; 2) a re-interpretation of "active" diffeomorphisms as "passive and metric-dependent" (...) dynamical symmetries of Einstein's equations, a re-interpretation which enables to disclose their (up to now unknown) connection to gauge transformations on-shell; understanding such connection also enlightens the real content of the Hole Argument or, better, dis-solves it together with its alleged "indeterminism"; 3) the utilization of the Bergmann-Komar "intrinsic pseudo-coordinates", defined as suitable functionals of the Weyl curvature scalars, as tools for a peculiar gauge-fixing to the super-hamiltonian and super-momentum constraints; 4) the consequent construction of a "physical atlas" of 4-coordinate systems for the 4-dimensional "mathematical" manifold, in terms of the highly non-local degrees of freedom of the gravitational field (its four independent "Dirac observables"). Such construction embodies the "physical individuation" of the points of space-time as "point-events", independently of the presence of matter, and associates a "non-commutative structure" to each gauge fixing or four-dimensional coordinate system; 5) a clarification of the multiple definition given by Peter Bergmann of the concept of "(Bergmann) observable" in general relativity. This clarification leads to the proposal of a "main conjecture" asserting the existence of i) special Dirac's observables which are also Bergmann's observables, ii) gauge variables that are coordinate independent (namely they behave like the tetradic scalar fields of the Newman-Penrose formalism). A by-product of this achievements is the falsification of a recently advanced argument asserting the absence of (any kind of) "change" in the observable quantities of general relativity. 6) a clarification of the physical role of Dirac and gauge variables as their being related to "tidal-like" and "inertial-like" effects, respectively. This clarification is mainly due to the fact that, unlike the standard formulations of the equivalence principle, the Hamiltonian formalism allows to define notion of "force" in general relativity in a natural way; 7) a proposal showing how the physical individuation of point-events could in principle be implemented as an experimental setup and protocol leading to a "standard of space-time" more or less like atomic clocks define standards of time. We conclude that, besides being operationally essential for building measuring apparatuses for the gravitational field, the role of matter in the non-vacuum gravitational case is also that of "participating directly" in the individuation process, being involved in the determination of the Dirac observables. This circumstance leads naturally to a peculiar new kind of "structuralist" view of the general-relativistic concept of space-time, a view that embodies some elements of both the traditional "absolutist" and "relational" conceptions. In the end, space-time point-events maintain a "peculiar sort of objectivity". Some hints following from our approach for the quantum gravity programme are also given. (shrink)

In modern physics nonlinear systems with a lot of heterogeneity and anisotropy which are in strong fields and processes of crossings of electromechanical, spinor-mechanical, termo-magnetic and other ones are actual. Correct building with the help of mathematics of the given theories is possible only with the attraction geometry of the stratified spaces. The geometry of the stratified spaces chow its power by examining these systems and processes. Noncontradictional, covarianty theory of the single whole field of matter can be built only (...) with the attraction the geometry of the stratified spaces. Introduction the stratified spaces into physics of geometry is a continuation of works of Hamiltone, Langrange, Aler and other scientists. The problem is multivariate spaces of internal degrees offreedom. The ideas, positions of geometry of stratified spaces and their supplements demand a new philosophical sense of understanding. (shrink)

Though the use of the word “spirituality” abounds, the meaning can vary greatly. Three increasingly narrow categories seem to cover the essence of “spirituality” within American culture: general, Christian, and biblical. General spirituality is broad and all-inclusive. Christian spirituality introduces the necessity of Christ and the Holy Spirit, but has been undermined to a degree by the elevation of personal subjectivism. As a result the need has arisen for a third category. Biblical spirituality emphasizes the Bible as the basis for (...) shaping one's understanding of and experience with God, as well as determining what is and is not of the Spirit of God. The Bible is still relevant and should be the spiritual basis for determining what appropriate expressions of faith are, grounding spirituality in an objective standard. Biblical spirituality should be advocated today within the church in capturing the essence of New Testament spirituality. (shrink)

Many widely divergent accounts of luck have been offered or employed in discussing an equally wide range of philosophical topics. We should, then, expect to find some unified philosophical conception of luck of which moral luck, epistemic luck, and luck egalitarianism are species. One of the attempts to provide such an account is that offered by Duncan Pritchard, which he refers to as the modal account. This view commits us to calling an event lucky when it obtains in this world, (...) but fails to obtain in a wide class of nearby possible worlds. In support of this account, Pritchard argues that a theory of luck ought to capture the fact that luck comes in degrees and that luck is closely associated with risk. I argue against this claim by suggesting that an understanding of luck grounded in considerations of probability is better able to satisfy these demands, and that the probability theory better explains exemplary cases of luck like those brought up by Pritchard. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.1 (2002) 188-198 [Access article in PDF] Symposium: On Ken Burns's "Jazz" On Representing Jazz: An Art Form in Need of Understanding Garry L. Hagberg ALTHOUGH IT WENT ON in smaller numbers in earlier decades, the fact that there were legions of expatriate jazz musicians fleeing to a far more appreciative Europe in the 1960s and 1970s shows how important a cultural event Ken Burns's (...) documentary on the first century of jazz really is. Those expatriate players were all but forced out by a rapidly diminishing audience and a corresponding lack of appreciation for their artistic achievements and abilities. It is in any social context an achievement to gain an audience for an undervalued artform of between three and four million viewers for nineteen hours; to have done so against the backdrop of the fact—one bitter to swallow for so many American players of those years—that the country of origin for this artform was so slow to significantly value it, makes this documentary almost a form of cultural emergency-relief. But it also raises the stakes in how jazz is represented, which of its features are focused upon, and what kind of story is told about its development. In my opinion the film makes deeply serious errors in each of these ways—almost to the point of turning this seemingly magnificent gift to jazz into a Trojan horse—but here I'd like to focus on five of the features of jazz as an art that I think make jazz particularly difficult to portray in a reduced or simplified form. To put the point a bit more strongly: without an awareness of (at the least) these five features of jazz, any attempted portrayal would run the very serious danger of engendering or further nurturing the very incomprehension of the artistic or aesthetic achievements of jazz that drove all those American players to Copenhagen, Paris, London, Munich, Vienna, and Amsterdam in the first place. It is, in short, necessary to provide at least a sense of what is [End Page 188] intrinsically problematic about the artform to illuminate both its distinctive nature and the aesthetic problems—taken by its practitioners as its internally generated artistic challenges—that give this artform its dynamic energy.First, there is the fundamental question concerning the metaphysics of a jazz piece, i.e., what kind of thing it is. At a glance one can see that a familiar attempt to answer this question within the larger field of the aesthetics of music, i.e., the identification of the work with the score, will have precious little plausibility when applied to jazz. As any jazz musician or aficionado knows, jazz pieces that become "standards" are pieces that are performed countless times, in innumerably variegated ways, and what is usually of greatest interest about any given performance of a standard is not, indeed, how well or to what extent it instantiates a predetermined ideal of the piece as specified in the score, but rather how it departs from, or adds distinctive interpretive content, to the basic structure of the piece. This aesthetically significant fact is reflected in the correlated common practice of using, not scores, but rather schematic "lead sheets" that provide the very basic harmonic and melodic material of the piece. Even larger-ensemble pieces, e.g., the scores of Duke Ellington, are notated only in the sectional writing; the improvisational sections—the sections that many would say give the distinctive life to any given performance—are of course not notated. There are fully notated scores of many—to use a dangerously complicated word—classic jazz performances, but in jazz parlance these, here again with aesthetic significance, are not called scores, but rather transcriptions, and in this improvisational artform it would be cause for suspicion rather than congratulation if a player were to perform a given work exactly in accordance with the transcription repeatedly. The nature of the jazz piece, the jazz composition, is thus extraordinarily fluid and only minimally defined. And as one might expect, the degree or the extent... (shrink)

From 1945 on for two decades, Father William Wade was Chairman of the Department of Philosophy at St. Louis University. This volume, a recovery of his own 1935 Ph.D dissertation, was originally written under the direction of Vernon J. Bourke, later himself a renowned interpreter of both St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. In his dissertation, Wade displays deep understanding of relationships between Greek and medieval thought as well as of the different influences of Plato and Aristotle by way (...) of Augustine and Thomas. (shrink)

A second-person perspective in neuroscience is particularly appropriate for the study of communication. We describe how the investigation of joint language tasks can contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying interaction.

We are told that we live in a scientific world. All about us are the fruits of scientific research, and the products of scientific industry. But, in spite of this transformation of our material surroundings, scientific thought, or the scientific method as such, has had no effect upon the everyday thought and behaviour of our people. To be sure, along with the scientific gadgets a few scientific truths have been disseminated. They know the earth is round and moves about the (...) sun; they could know that bacteria cause disease and that they are themselves descended from less articulate forms of animal life. Even when such conclusions are accepted, it is on the basis of authority with no understanding as to how they arose and on what basis they stand. For the large majority, science has merely acquired a cloak of respectability; it is a stronger magic than that of our forebears, and our modern alchemy is known as a powerful though mysterious source of pecuniary profit. (shrink)

Ten years ago, I stopped work as a junior doctor at a provincial New Zealand hospital and enrolled in a creative writing degree. I finished on a night shift—quiet, but marred by a particularly upsetting case of domestic violence. I remember getting changed at the end of the night into my own clothes, stuffing the scrubs I’d been wearing into the laundry bag that hung outside the doctor’s lounge, and leaving the hospital to pack for the move to a new (...) city. It was a strange way to finish, on a Sunday morning, without the colleagues in the Woman, Child and Family service with whom I’d spent so much time.For the next year, instead of ward rounds, night shifts, and on-call, I read, wrote poetry, and trekked up the hill.. (shrink)

A critical issue in executive control is how the nervous system exerts flexibility to inhibit a prepotent response and adapt to sudden changes in the environment. In this study, force measurement was used to capture “partial” unsuccessful trials that are highly relevant in extending the current understanding of motor inhibition processing. Moreover, a modified version of the stop-signal task was used to control and eliminate potential attentional capture effects from the motor inhibition index. The results illustrate that the non-canceled (...) force and force rate increased as a function of stop-signal delay, offering new objective indices for gauging the dynamic inhibitory process. Motor response was a function of delay in the presentation of novel/infrequent stimuli. A larger lateralized readiness potential amplitude in go and novel stimuli indicated an influence of the novel stimuli on central motor processing. Moreover, an early N1 component reflects an index of motor inhibition in addition to the N2 component reported in previous studies. Source analysis revealed that the activation of N2 originated from inhibitory control associated areas: the right inferior frontal gyrus, pre-motor cortex, and primary motor cortex. Regarding partial responses, LRP and error-related negativity were associated with error correction processes, whereas the N2 component may indicate the functional overlap between inhibition and error correction. In sum, the present study has developed reliable and objective indices of motor inhibition by introducing force, force-rate and electrophysiological measures, further elucidating our understandings of dynamic motor inhibition and error correction. (shrink)

Successful tutoring depends in part on child tutors’ ability to recognise and interpret accurately signals of misunderstanding by their tutees. Age- and gender-related differences were investigated in a study which exposed 80 children to a video-recorded episode involving a target child receiving ambiguous instructions in her attempts to move a model car along a designated route on a playmat roadway from one destination to another. The results showed that explicit, general and facial modes of displaying puzzlement by the target child (...) were judged as equally powerful expressions of degree of puzzlement, but 8-10 year olds judged the target child as significantly more puzzled than did 7 year olds. Older children were also more likely to attribute the puzzlement of the target child to the ambiguous instructions than to her verbal or facial expression of puzzlement. Girls were generally more accurate than boys in judging facial expressions and less likely than boys to give wrong or alternatively ambiguous responses when given the opportunity to correct the video-recorded ambiguous instructions. The results throw some light on the developing sensitivities of boys and girls in recognising and attributing failures of understanding by other children. (shrink)

Philosophical debates on how to account for the progress of science have traditionally divided along the realism-anti-realism axis. Relatively recent developments in epistemology, however, have opened up a new knowledge-understanding axis to the debate. This chapter presents a novel understanding-based account of scientific progress that takes its motivation from problem-solving practices in science. Problem-solving is characterized as a means of measuring degree of understanding, which is argued to be the principal epistemic (or cognitive) aim of science, over (...) and against knowledge. This account is then defended against knowledge reductionism by showing how each plays an important and distinctive role in science. (shrink)

The literature on the nature of understanding can be divided into two broad camps. Explanationists believe that it is knowledge of explanations that is key to understanding. In contrast, their manipulationist rivals maintain that understanding essentially involves an ability to manipulate certain representations. The aim of this paper is to provide a novel knowledge based account of understanding. More specifically, it proposes an account of maximal understanding of a given phenomenon in terms of fully comprehensive (...) and maximally well-connected knowledge of it and of degrees of understanding in terms of approximations to such knowledge. It is completed by a contextualist semantics for outright attributions of understanding according to which an attribution of understanding is true of one just in case one knows enough about it to perform some contextually determined task. It is argued that this account has an edge over both its explanationist and manipulationist competitors. (shrink)

Disagreeing with Jerrold Levinson's claim that being conscious of broad-span musical form is not essential to understanding music, I will argue that our awareness of musical architecture is significant to achieve comprehension. I will show that the experiential model is not incompatible with the analytic model. My main goal is to show that these two models can be reconciled through the identification of a broader notion of understanding. After accomplishing this reconciliation by means of my new conception, I (...) will close the paper by discussing some reasons to accept an enhancing notion of musical understanding that includes levels and degrees of understanding. /// En desacuerdo con la afirmación de Jerrold Levinson: que ser consciente de la forma musical a gran escala no es esencial para comprender la música, sostendré que nuestra conciencia de la estructura musical es significante para alcanzar comprensión. Mostraré que el modelo experiencial no es incompatible con el modelo analítico y que ambos pueden ser reconciliados mediante una noción de comprensión más amplia. Después de llevar a cabo está reconciliación mediante la nueva concepción que propongo, concluiré discutiendo algunas razones para aceptar una noción de comprensión musical enriquecida que incluye niveles y grados de comprensión. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore how best to conceptualize the nature of alexithymia. I argue that the condition is best understood as a dimensional construct; as such, it is likely that there exist various degrees of alexithymia. Moreover, I explore the merits of two analogies that others have used to try to understand the nature of alexithymia: one characterizes the condition as an analogue of associative visual object agnosia, and the other characterizes it as the emotional equivalent of blindsight. (...) I argue that the analogy with blindsight more adequately portrays the processing deficit involved in mild alexithymia, but that neither the analogy with blindsight nor the analogy with associative visual object agnosia is able to account for the deficit involved in severe alexithymia. Instead, I argue that the deficit involved in severe alexithymia is best understood through an analogy with apperceptive visual agnosia. (shrink)

This study investigated the understanding of underinformative sentences like “Some elephants have trunks” by children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The scalar term ‘some’ can be interpreted pragmatically, ‘Not all elephants have trunks’, or logically, ‘Some and possibly all elephants have trunks’. Literature indicates that adults with ASD show no real difficulty in interpreting scalar implicatures, i.e., they often interpret them pragmatically, as controls do. This contrasts with the traditional claim of difficulties of people with ASD in other pragmatic (...) domains, and is more in line with the idea that pragmatic problems are not universal. The aim of this study was to: a) gain insight in the ability of children with ASD to derive scalar implicatures, and b) do this by assessing not only sensitivity to underinformativeness, but also different degrees of tolerance to violations of informativeness. We employed a classic statement-evaluation task, presenting optimal, logical false, and underinformative utterances. In Experiment 1, children had to express their judgment on a binary option ‘I agree’ vs ‘I disagree’. In Experiment 2, a ternary middle answer option ‘I agree a bit’ was also available. Sixty-six Flemish-speaking 10-year-old children were tested: 22 children with ASD, an IQ-matched group, and an age-matched group. In the binary judgment task, the ASD-group gave more pragmatic answers than the other groups, which was significant in the mixed effects logistic regression analysis, although not in the non-parametric analysis. In the ternary judgment task, the children with ASD showed a dichotomized attitude towards the speaker’s meaning, by tending to either fully agree or fully disagree with underinformative statements, in contrast with TD children, who preferred the middle option. Remarkably, the IQ-matched group exhibited the same pattern of results as the ASD group. Thanks to a fine-grained measure such as the ternary judgment task, this study highlighted a neglected aspect of the pragmatic profile of ASD, whose struggle with social communication seems to affect also the domain of informativeness. We discuss the implications of the dichotomized reaction towards violations of informativeness of these two groups in terms of the potential role of ASD and of cognitive and verbal abilities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Understanding Musical Understanding: The Philosophy, Psychology and Sociology of the Musical ExperienceDavid BakerHarold E. Fiske, Understanding Musical Understanding: The Philosophy, Psychology and Sociology of the Musical Experience. (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008).Building on several earlier publications on music and the mind (1990, 1993, 1996, 2004), Harold Fiske offers Understanding Musical Understanding. This is a well-referenced piece that outlines the thinking (...) of various authors (for example, Crowder, 19931; Huron, 2006;2 Snyder, 20073). Furthermore, as Fiske meticulously constructs his case, it draws in psychologists such as Carl Seashore and philosophers like Aristotle, Hegel, Kant, and Schopenhauer. All this suggests an author of great expertise and wide appeal.Fiske begins to build his argument by discussing musical cognition in terms of ‘time’ (Chapter 2) and ‘shape’ (Chapter 3) returning to these themes in greater detail in Chapter 6. It may seem axiomatic that music is perceived structurally and through time. Yet, as the author mentions, the capacity for someone to designate musical form is no way in which to illustrate systematically the workings of musical understanding. This happens swiftly and unceasingly in the course of a person’s musical encounter. It is commonplace, too, for musicians and listeners to allude to visual imagery and shape when describing music (for example, ‘high [End Page 204] and low pitches,’ ‘a texture that is dense or thin,’ or ‘an angular melody’). Fiske contributes a plausible explanation of musical shape:... the perceived shape of music can only be the outcome of a construction (not reconstruction or ‘copy’) calculated on the part of the neural network mechanisms… The ‘reality’ of a musical-auditory image is likely a result of imposing a three-dimensioned visual perspective on an inherently unstructured (invisible, tasteless, intangible, and otherwise unknowable) transitory experience. This is the only means the brain has for making sense of a sound event. What it seems to do is: identify relevant cues, piece the cues together into patterns that can be retained (in the echoic memory) long enough for brain mechanisms to examine and create the sense that we can ‘look’ at music by invoking principles borrowed from vision, and then creating the impression of an auditory ‘object.’ The ‘object’ seems complete and multidimensioned but is, however, only remotely related to what we hear during the slit-like limitations of the perceptual ‘now.’(p. 56).Nonetheless, the manner in which we communicate musical perception with terms borrowed from vision does not inconclusively evidence the same mechanisms of human thought on receiving visual or, on the other hand, musical stimuli. Use of such language may only represent an opportune mode of expressing phenomena to which we have no dedicated vocabulary. Fiske argues that musical understanding is part of the human organism’s genetically-inherited capacity to construe (rapidly invent) patterns from sonic stimuli thus making sense of temporal experience. This process, he argues, is part of the brain’s facility to determine quickly the source, kind and meaning of stimuli for the organism’s immediate safety and survival; the mental processes involved are regulated by ‘brain time’ as opposed to ‘clock time.’ Brain time is “... a rapid, micro-temporal, flexible-variable scheme...” (p. 8) in contrast to pre- and externally-determined ‘clock time.’Musical memory is addressed in Chapter 4 in tandem with ‘pattern constructs.’ Pattern constructs, Fiske explains, are ‘chunks’ of learned musical experience encoded in ‘brain time’ as multi-dimensional, unidirectional entities (p. 63). There is evidence of the ‘inner replay’ of learned events such as these.4 Incoming musical information is perceived, though, according to the listener’s cognitive context, and perhaps retroactively linked for ‘best fit’ rather than being ‘measured’ against fixed expectations and pre-established contextual information, say, about genre. The degree of ‘best fit’ either confirms or modifies assumed context. An important point Fiske makes, then, is that “... a misfit... between incoming information and the presumed context” evidences learning (p. 84).5 Since a ‘misfit’ triggers modifications to the cognitive context by which a person discerns music, it enriches his or her musical knowledge and understanding. [End Page 205] Consequently, Fiske sets a challenge for music education: “... how [do we] design teaching... (shrink)

If a classical system has infinitely many degrees of freedom, its Hamiltonian quantization need not be unique up to unitary equivalence. I sketch different approaches (Hilbert space and algebraic) to understanding the content of quantum theories in light of this non‐uniqueness, and suggest that neither approach suffices to support explanatory aspirations encountered in the thermodynamic limit of quantum statistical mechanics.

The phenomenon of malaise is on the rise at universities, reflecting a deteriorating psychological state that is a combination of anxiety and stress factors. This psychological and emotional upheaval within students is indicative of a fundamental existential issue. In fact, hidden behind the choice of an educational program is the significance given by the student to their life goals. It is this dimension of attributing meaning to one’s education and, more broadly, to one’s life (the existential dimension) that we have (...) sought to explore. We hypothesized that a stable investment in one’s life goals and a sense of psychological wellbeing during one’s studies could be fostered by reflective work done alongside the educational process. Our research took the form of a mixed methodological approach to the attribution of meaning to education, including an interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA), and the experimentation of support for the meaning of education. Four dimensions of meaning were found to be observable in varying degrees in all students, each playing a specific role. Moreover, this research has confirmed that the meaning of studies is not to be understood solely in terms of education, but is part of a singular life story. Reflective work, developing meaning, facilitated by others (advisor, teacher, etc.) can help preserve/restore the feeling of wellbeing. It should be noted that, as the work presented in this article predates the pandemic, we will not address the amplifying effects of this health crisis on existential issues, which some recent studies are beginning to highlight. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Terms of the Problem The Scientific Understanding of Mind Theism and the Philosophy of Mind Compatibility, Harmony, and Mutual Support.

Most consumer morality studies focus on consumer immorality, i.e. different types and degrees of consumer dishonesty or deviance. This paper follows this tradition, by looking at insurance customer dishonesty. For looking at insurance customer dishonesty in a wider perspective, the paper drafts a sociology of insurance customer morality, including outlines of micro-level, meso-level and macro-level moral sociologies of insurance fraud, as well as a discussion of moral heterogeneity and a critical understanding of deviance. As a next step a (...) few empirical rsearch questions are formulated and illustrated with data from a Norwegian-German pilot study. (shrink)

Moral understanding is a species of knowledge. Understanding why an action is wrong, for example, amounts to knowing why the action is wrong. The claim that moral understanding is immune to luck while moral knowledge is not does not withstand scrutiny; nor does the idea that there is something deep about understanding for there are different degrees of understanding. It is also mistaken to suppose that grasping is a distinct psychological state that accompanies (...) class='Hi'>understanding. To understand why something is the case is to grasp or see why something is the case and grasping and seeing are ways of knowing. (shrink)

Work on representing women's voices in ethics has produced a vision of moral understanding profoundly subversive of the traditional philosophical conception of moral knowledge. 1 explicate this alternative moral “epistemology,” identify how it challenges the prevailing view, and indicate some of its resources for a liberatory feminist critique of philosophical ethics.

Microorganisms demonstrate conscious-like intelligent behaviour, and this form of consciousness may have emerged from a quantum mediated mechanism as observed in cytoskeletal structures like the microtubules present in nerve cells whichapparently have the architecture to quantum compute. This paper hypothesises the emergence of proto-consciousness in primitivecytoskeletal systems found in the microbial kingdoms of archaea, bacteria and eukarya. To explain this, we make use of the Subject–Object Model (SOM) of consciousness which evaluates the rise of the degree of consciousness to conscious (...) behaviourin these systems supporting the hypothesis of emergence and propagation of conscious behaviour during the pre-Cambrian partof Earth’s evolutionary history. Consciousness as proto-consciousness or sentience computed via primitive cytoskeletal structures substantiates as a driver for the intelligence observed in the microbial world during this period ranging from single-cellular to collective intelligence as a means to adapt and survive. The growth in complexity of intelligence, cytoskeletal system and adaptive behaviours are key to evolution, and thus supports the progression of the Lamarckian theory of evolution driven by quantum mediated proto-consciousness to consciousness as described in the SOM of consciousness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.3 (2003) 78-98 [Access article in PDF] Aesthetic Understanding as Informed Experience:The Role of Knowledge in Our Art Viewing Experiences Richard Lachapelle, Deborah Murray, and Sandy Neim [Figures] Thinking calls for images, and images contain thought. Therefore, the visual arts are a homeground of visual thinking. 1A common misconception about the nature of art and of aesthetic appreciation is that these activities are (...) essentially a question of "feeling," as if tuning in to the right feeling will automatically lead to a full understanding of the work of art. Another widespread misunderstanding essentially reduces art viewing to a simple question of perception, as if looking long and hard isalways enough to apprehend the work of art's message. Fortunately, a growing body of research into adults' art viewing experiences is debunking these widely held beliefs as oversimplifications of the art viewing process. We can now assert, with a good degree of certainty, that our art viewing experiences solicit four key areas: the affective, perceptual, communicative, and cognitive dimensions of human experiencing. 2 Therefore, we would be hard-pressed not to agree with Rudolph Arnheim's reflections, presented above, on the important role of thought in shaping our artistic and aesthetic experiences.While acknowledging at the outset the essential roles of affect, perception, and communication in our art viewing experiences, this paper focuses more specifically on aspects of the intellectual dimension of this experience. First, we will present and discuss a model that we have developed over the last several years. This model identifies the kinds of knowledge and learning involved in art viewing activities. Second, we will present the results of an empirical study conducted to provide support for the model. Finally we will briefly discuss the model's usefulness for the purposes of aesthetic education. [End Page 78] The Model of Aesthetic Understanding as Informed Experience The Model of Aesthetic Understanding as Informed Experience provides an explanation of the process of understanding and appreciating a work of art from an educational perspective: it identifies the types of knowledge involved and it also pinpoints the kinds of learning at each stage in the process leading to an understanding of the aesthetic object.In this model, the process of viewing and understanding a work of art is visualized as a two-phased type of informed experience. Through a process of experiential learning, the viewer first encounters the work of art and formulates an initial interpretation. Then, through a process involving theoretical learning, the viewer compares his or her first interpretation with a related body of external, scientific information. This second step in the learning process leads to a reconstruction of knowledge about the work of art. Tandem use of the two processes assists the viewer in furthering his or her understanding of the art object; it also promotes growth in his or her art viewing skills. In the course of each new encounter with an aesthetic object, the interplay of experiential and theoretical learning leads to additional development of the viewer's background knowledge in art, resulting in better preparedness to successfully engage the next work of art. 4 Theoretical Foundations of the Model Three different theories informed the development of the model. 5 By using anecdotal evidence obtained from a group of fifty-two museum professionals, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Rick E.Robinson were able to identify the four major dimensions of aesthetic experience: intellect, communication, perception, and emotion. Each one of these dimensions constitutes, to some extent, a challenge that the work of art addresses to the viewer. According to these researchers, the intellectual dimension of aesthetic experience consists of all aspects of the viewer's attempts to use knowledge in order to find meaning in the work of art (TAS, 27-71). Csikszentmihalyi and Robinson also propose a model that describes the aesthetic encounter in terms of an interaction between the viewer, the work of art, and the artist. To this encounter, the viewer brings his skills in aesthetic appreciation; these may be... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.3 (2003) 78-98 [Access article in PDF] Aesthetic Understanding as Informed Experience:The Role of Knowledge in Our Art Viewing Experiences Richard Lachapelle, Deborah Murray, and Sandy Neim [Figures] Thinking calls for images, and images contain thought. Therefore, the visual arts are a homeground of visual thinking. 1A common misconception about the nature of art and of aesthetic appreciation is that these activities are (...) essentially a question of "feeling," as if tuning in to the right feeling will automatically lead to a full understanding of the work of art. Another widespread misunderstanding essentially reduces art viewing to a simple question of perception, as if looking long and hard isalways enough to apprehend the work of art's message. Fortunately, a growing body of research into adults' art viewing experiences is debunking these widely held beliefs as oversimplifications of the art viewing process. We can now assert, with a good degree of certainty, that our art viewing experiences solicit four key areas: the affective, perceptual, communicative, and cognitive dimensions of human experiencing. 2 Therefore, we would be hard-pressed not to agree with Rudolph Arnheim's reflections, presented above, on the important role of thought in shaping our artistic and aesthetic experiences.While acknowledging at the outset the essential roles of affect, perception, and communication in our art viewing experiences, this paper focuses more specifically on aspects of the intellectual dimension of this experience. First, we will present and discuss a model that we have developed over the last several years. This model identifies the kinds of knowledge and learning involved in art viewing activities. Second, we will present the results of an empirical study conducted to provide support for the model. Finally we will briefly discuss the model's usefulness for the purposes of aesthetic education. [End Page 78] The Model of Aesthetic Understanding as Informed Experience The Model of Aesthetic Understanding as Informed Experience provides an explanation of the process of understanding and appreciating a work of art from an educational perspective: it identifies the types of knowledge involved and it also pinpoints the kinds of learning at each stage in the process leading to an understanding of the aesthetic object.In this model, the process of viewing and understanding a work of art is visualized as a two-phased type of informed experience. Through a process of experiential learning, the viewer first encounters the work of art and formulates an initial interpretation. Then, through a process involving theoretical learning, the viewer compares his or her first interpretation with a related body of external, scientific information. This second step in the learning process leads to a reconstruction of knowledge about the work of art. Tandem use of the two processes assists the viewer in furthering his or her understanding of the art object; it also promotes growth in his or her art viewing skills. In the course of each new encounter with an aesthetic object, the interplay of experiential and theoretical learning leads to additional development of the viewer's background knowledge in art, resulting in better preparedness to successfully engage the next work of art. 4 Theoretical Foundations of the Model Three different theories informed the development of the model. 5 By using anecdotal evidence obtained from a group of fifty-two museum professionals, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Rick E.Robinson were able to identify the four major dimensions of aesthetic experience: intellect, communication, perception, and emotion. Each one of these dimensions constitutes, to some extent, a challenge that the work of art addresses to the viewer. According to these researchers, the intellectual dimension of aesthetic experience consists of all aspects of the viewer's attempts to use knowledge in order to find meaning in the work of art (TAS, 27-71). Csikszentmihalyi and Robinson also propose a model that describes the aesthetic encounter in terms of an interaction between the viewer, the work of art, and the artist. To this encounter, the viewer brings his skills in aesthetic appreciation; these may be... (shrink)

This study aimed to explore the understanding of and attitudes towards academic ethics of first-year students at a South African University using a paper-based survey that yielded 3611 respondents. A degree of confusion and ambivalence regarding academic ethical issues exists. The relative wealth of respondents also appears to influence the understanding of and attitudes to academic ethics. Millennial students have a tendency to disregard ownership of knowledge. There is a need for instruction in academic ethics to instil an (...) awareness of integrity in academic pursuit, coupled with an understanding of the world views of millennials. (shrink)