The moral error theory has become increasingly popular in recent decades. So much so indeed that a new issue emerged, the so-called “now-what problem”: if all our moral beliefs are false, then what should we do with them? So far, philosophers who are interested in this problem have focused their attention on the mode of the attitudes we should have with respect to moral propositions. Some have argued that we should keep holding proper moral beliefs; others that we should (...) replace our moral beliefs with fictional attitudes, beliefs in natural facts, or conative attitudes. But all these philosophers have set aside an important question about the content of these attitudes: which moral propositions, and more generally which moral theory, should we accept? The present paper addresses this neglected issue, arguing that moral error theorists should adopt a utilitarian moral fiction. In other words, they should accept the set of moral principles whose general acceptance would maximize overall well-being. (shrink)

A main message from the causal modelling literature in the last several decades is that under some plausible assumptions, there can be statistically consistent procedures for inferring (features of) the causal structure of a set of random variables from observational data. But whether we can control the error probabilities with a finite sample size depends on the kind of consistency the procedures can achieve. It has been shown that in general, under the standard causal Markov and Faithfulness assumptions, the (...) procedures can only be pointwise but not uniformly consistent without substantial background knowledge. This implies the impossibility of choosing a finite sample size to control the worst case error probabilities. In this paper, I consider the simpler task of inferring causal directions when the skeleton of the causal structure is known, and establish a similarly negative result concerning the possibility of controlling error probabilities. Although the result is negative in form, it has an interesting positive implication for causal discovery methods. (shrink)

Error theories about morality often take as their starting point the supposed queerness of morality, and those resisting these arguments often try to argue by analogy that morality is no more queer than other unproblematic subject matters. Here, error theory (as exemplified primarily by the work of Richard Joyce) is resisted first by arguing that it assumes a common, modern, and peculiarly social conception of morality. Then error theorists point out that the social nature of morality requires (...) one to act against one's self-interest while insisting on the categorical, inescapable, or overriding status of moral considerations: they argue that morality requires magic, then (rightly) claim that there is no such thing as magic. An alternate eudaimonist conception of morality is introduced which itself has an older provenance than the social point of view, dating to the ancient Greeks. Eudaimonism answers to the normative requirements of morality, yet does not require magic. Thus, the initial motivation for error theory is removed. (shrink)

_Material Falsity and Error in Descartes’s Meditations _approaches Descartes’s Meditations as an intellectual journey, wherein Descartes’s views develop and change as he makes new discoveries about self, God and matter. The first book to focus closely on Descartes’s notion of material falsity, it shows how Descartes’s account of material falsity – and correspondingly his account of crucial notions such as truth, falsehood and error – evolves according to the epistemic advances in the Meditations. It also offers important new (...) insights on the crucial role of Descartes’s Third Meditation discussion of material falsity in advancing many subsequent arguments in the Meditations. This book is essential reading for those working on Descartes and early modern philosophy. It presents an independent reading on issues of perennial interest, such as Descartes’s views on error, truth and falsehood. It also makes important contributions to topics that have been the focus of much recent scholarship, such as Descartes’s ethics and his theodicy. Those working on the interface between medieval and modern philosophy will find the discussions on Descartes’s debt to predecessors like Suárez and Augustine invaluable. (shrink)

What is the correct concept behind measures of inflation? Does money cause business activity or is it the other way around? Shall we stimulate growth by raising aggregate demand or rather by lowering taxes and thereby providing incentives to produce? Policy-relevant questions such as these are of immediate and obvious importance to the welfare of societies. The standard approach in dealing with them is to build a model, based on economic theory, answer the question for the model world and then (...) apply the results to economic phenomena outside. Data come in, if at all, only in testing a limited number of the model's consequences. Despite some critical voices, economic methodology too has by and large subscribed to a "theory first" approach to applied economics. Error in Economics systematically develops an alternative to the theory-based orthodoxy. It places the methodical study of evidence at the centre of the scientific enterprise and thus provides a foundation for a methodology of evidence-based economics. But the book does not stop at the truism that claims should be based on the best available evidence. Rather, detailed studies in the areas of measurement, causal inference and policy analysis show what it means for a claim to be evidence-based in the context of a concrete case. The examples discussed concern topics as diverse as consumer price indices, radio spectrum auctions, the transmission mechanism, natural experiments on minimum wages and the evaluation of counterfactuals for policy. Error in Economics is essential reading for economic methodologists, philosophers of science and anyone interested in how claims about socio-economic matters are validated. (shrink)

_Material Falsity and Error in Descartes’s Meditations _approaches Descartes’s Meditations as an intellectual journey, wherein Descartes’s views develop and change as he makes new discoveries about self, God and matter. The first book to focus closely on Descartes’s notion of material falsity, it shows how Descartes’s account of material falsity – and correspondingly his account of crucial notions such as truth, falsehood and error – evolves according to the epistemic advances in the Meditations. It also offers important new (...) insights on the crucial role of Descartes’s Third Meditation discussion of material falsity in advancing many subsequent arguments in the Meditations. This book is essential reading for those working on Descartes and early modern philosophy. It presents an independent reading on issues of perennial interest, such as Descartes’s views on error, truth and falsehood. It also makes important contributions to topics that have been the focus of much recent scholarship, such as Descartes’s ethics and his theodicy. Those working on the interface between medieval and modern philosophy will find the discussions on Descartes’s debt to predecessors like Suárez and Augustine invaluable. (shrink)

Although both philosophers and scientists are interested in how to obtain reliable knowledge in the face of error, there is a gap between their perspectives that has been an obstacle to progress. By means of a series of exchanges between the editors and leaders from the philosophy of science, statistics and economics, this volume offers a cumulative introduction connecting problems of traditional philosophy of science to problems of inference in statistical and empirical modelling practice. Philosophers of science and scientific (...) practitioners are challenged to reevaluate the assumptions of their own theories - philosophical or methodological. Practitioners may better appreciate the foundational issues around which their questions revolve and thereby become better 'applied philosophers'. Conversely, new avenues emerge for finally solving recalcitrant philosophical problems of induction, explanation and theory testing. (shrink)

An error theory about moral reasons is the view that ordinary thought is committed to error, and that the alleged error is the thought that moral norms (expressing alleged moral requirements) invariably supply agents with sufficient normative reasons (for action). In this paper, I sketch two distinct ways of arguing for the error theorist's substantive conclusion that moral norms do not invariably supply agents with sufficient normative reasons. I am primarily interested in the somewhat neglected way, (...) which I call the alternative route. A reason for this is because it seems a genuine question whether the alternative route towards the substantive conclusion need be as troubling to the moralist as the standard route. My hunch is that it is not. Though the alternative error theory denies justification from genuinely moral acts, it also does so from acts born out of self-interest or immorality. If the alternative theory is true, the moralist can at least hold on to the claim that if genuinely moral considerations fail to provide agents with reasons for action, nothing else (of the sort) does. (shrink)

Moorean arguments are a popular and powerful way to engage highly revisionary philosophical views, such as nihilism about motion, time, truth, consciousness, causation, and various kinds of skepticism (e.g., external world, other minds, inductive, global). They take, as a premise, a highly plausible first-order claim (e.g., cars move, I ate breakfast before lunch, it’s true that some fish have gills) and conclude from it the falsity of the highly revisionary philosophical thesis. Moorean arguments can be used against nihilists in ethics (...) (error theorists), too. Recently, error theorists have recognized Moorean arguments as a powerful challenge and have tried to meet it. They’ve argued that moral Moorean premises seem highly credible to us, but aren’t, by offering various debunking explanations. These explanations all appeal to higher-order evidence—evidence of error in our reasoning. I argue that drawing attention to higher-order evidence is a welcome contribution from error theorists, but that the higher-order evidence actually counts further against error theoretic arguments—including their debunking explanations—and further in favor of Moorean arguments and the commonsense views they support. Along the way I answer a few prominent objections to Moorean arguments: that they are objectionably question-begging, rely on categorizing some facts as “Moorean Facts”, and that reports of one’s credence in a proposition bears no interesting relation to that proposition’s credibility. (shrink)

Medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States, and there is growing consensus that medical errors should be discussed after they occur. This essay argues that potential errors should be discussed with patients as well in the informed consent process prior to treatment. While physicians don’t have the obligation to tell patients to go to physicians and hospitals that would present less potential for error, patients should be told of increased risks compared to other (...) options, and be guided through the data on physician and hospital rankings. Suggestions are given to improve this informed consent process. (shrink)

Throughout the history of philosophy there has been a sustained interest in the concepts of knowledge, truth and meaning; interest in the concepts of error, falsity and nonsense, on the other hand, has been intermittent and spasmodic. Error, for example, has suffered at the expense of knowledge to such an extent that sometimes its very existence has been denied, or it has been explained away as being merely the absence of or privation of knowledge; many theories of truth (...) are so constructed that no place can be found for falsity, and theories about what constitutes making sense pay, on the whole, little heed to what constitutes nonsense. In this paper I hope to do something to redress the balance so far as error is concerned. My remarks are prompted by the hope that, just as we may best understand health through the study of disease, so a consideration of error or failure may throw light on knowledge or success. It is clearly not very informative to say of error, falsity and nonsense that they are merely the absence of knowledge, truth and sense; indeed it is just as laconic as a proposed medical definition of disease as the absence of health. (shrink)

Within the philosophy of time there has been a growing interest in positions that deny the reality of time. Those positions, whether motivated by arguments from physics or metaphysics, have a shared conclusion: time is not real. What has not been made wholly clear, however, is exactly what it entails to deny the reality of time. Time is unreal, sure. But what does that mean? There has been only one sustained attempt to spell out exactly what it would mean to (...) endorse a temporal error theory; a theory that denies the reality of time—Baron & Miller’s ‘What is temporal error theory?’. Despite the fact that their paper makes significant strides in spelling out what would be required of a temporal error theory, my claim in this paper is that their position must be rejected and replaced. As well as looking to reject Baron and Miller’s position, I also look to provide that replacement. (shrink)

We argue that many evolved biases produced through selective forces described by error management theory are likely to entail misbeliefs. We illustrate our argument with the male sexual overperception bias. A misbelief could create motivational impetus for courtship, overcome the inhibiting effects of anxiety about rejection, and in some cases transform an initially sexually uninterested woman into an interested one.

This paper examines the implications of certain social psychological experiments for moral theory—specifically, for virtue theory. Gilbert Harman and John Doris have recently argued that the empirical evidence offered by ‘situationism’ demonstrates that there is no such thing as a character trait. I dispute this conclusion. My discussion focuses on the proper interpretation of the experimental data—the data themselves I grant for the sake of argument. I develop three criticisms of the anti-trait position. Of these, the central criticism concerns three (...) respects in which the experimental situations employed to test someone's character trait are inadequate to the task. First, they do not take account of the subject's own construal of the situation. Second, they include behaviour that is only marginally relevant to the trait in question. Third, they disregard the normative character of the responses in which virtue theory is interested. Given these inadequacies in situationism's operationalized conception of a ‘character trait’, I argue that situationism does not really address the proposition that people have ‘character traits’, properly understood. A fortiori, the social psychological evidence does not refute that proposition. I also adduce some limited experimental evidence in favour of character traits and distil two lessons we can nevertheless learn from situationism. (shrink)

Epistemic Contextualism is the view that “knows that” is semantically context-sensitive and that properly accommodating this fact into our philosophical theory promises to solve various puzzles concerning knowledge. Yet Epistemic Contextualism faces a big—some would say fatal—problem: The Semantic Error Problem. In its prominent form, this runs thus: speakers just don’t seem to recognise that “knows that” is context-sensitive; so, if “knows that” really is context-sensitive then such speakers are systematically in error about what is said by, or (...) how to evaluate, ordinary uses of “S knows that p”; but since it's wildly implausible that ordinary speakers should exhibit such systematic error, the expression “knows that” isn't context-sensitive. We are interested in whether, and in what ways, there is such semantic error; if there is such error, how it arises and is made manifest; and, again, if there is such error to what extent it is a problem for Epistemic Contextualism. The upshot is that some forms of The Semantic Error Problem turn out to be largely unproblematic. Those that remain troublesome have analogue error problems for various competitor conceptions of knowledge. So, if error is any sort of problem, then there is a problem for every extant competitor view. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce a paradigm of experiment which, we believe, is of interest both in psychology and philosophy. There the subject wears an HMD (head-mount display), and a camera is set up at the upper corner of the room, in which the subject is. As a result, the subject observes his own body through the HMD. We will mainly focus on the philosophical relevance of this experiment, especially to the thesis of so-called 'immunity to error through misidentification (...) relative to the first-person pronoun'. We will argue that one experiment conducted in this setting, which we call the bodily illusion experiment, provides a counterexample to that thesis. (shrink)

Interest in the computational aspects of modeling has been steadily growing in philosophy of science. This paper aims to advance the discussion by articulating the way in which modeling and computational errors are related and by explaining the significance of error management strategies for the rational reconstruction of scientific practice. To this end, we first characterize the role and nature of modeling error in relation to a recipe for model construction known as Euler’s recipe. We then describe a (...) general model that allows us to assess the quality of numerical solutions in terms of measures of computational errors that are completely interpretable in terms of modeling error. Finally, we emphasize that this type of error analysis involves forms of perturbation analysis that go beyond the basic model-theoretical and statistical/probabilistic tools typically used to characterize the scientific method; this demands that we revise and complement our reconstructive toolbox in a way that can affect our normative image of science. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Cognitive Error and Contemplative Practices:The Cultivation of Discernment in Mind and HeartWesley J. WildmanBrains are amazing organs in all creatures with central nervous systems and especially in human beings. But they are not perfect. Without forgetting the larger success story of cognitive evolution, I want to explore the way that cognitive biases sometimes produce errors in both religious and secular social settings and how such errors can be (...) diagnosed and corrected when they occur. This will involve noticing that error diagnosis and correction is a process that certain social groups have a vested interest in resisting or neglecting, in some respects, while the very same social groups may furnish resources that support the detection of cognitive errors, in other respects.This presents a moral quandary for both secular and religious groups. Should we educate children to be fully aware of their cognitive vulnerability to advertising, thereby learning how to resist and eventually become immune to one of the fundamental power sources of modern market economies? Should religious groups explain to young people their cognitive tendencies to posit the action of supernatural beings whether or not any such action exists, even though this may disrupt the power of religious groups to forge bracing social togetherness that supports psychologically useful coping skills? While I do not seek to answer such complex moral questions in this paper, I do argue that knowledge of cognitive biases and the resulting tendencies to cognitive error, self-defeating behaviors, and self-deception should be made available to those individuals and groups who are interested in promoting a high degree of critical self-awareness in the analysis of beliefs and behaviors in both secular and religious contexts.The term "error" is a potentially problematic one in that it misleadingly suggests that there might be a uniquely correct way in which cognition should work. I do not wish to suggest such a binary opposition. After all, biases exist in the human cognitive system either because they have been selected in the evolutionary process for their survival benefits or because they are side effects of other traits selected for their usefulness. My concern is with the wondrous human discovery that we can analyze [End Page 61] our behaviors and beliefs with such precision that we can sometimes detect when our cognitive biases produce mistaken beliefs and self-defeating behaviors. This forms the basis for my contention that cognition can often work better than it does—more accurately, less self-destructively—when tendencies to cognitive error are diagnosed, corrected, and perhaps even systematically resisted.The profound irony here is that the very same social groups (secular and religious) with an obvious vested interest in resisting such enlightenment in some respects can also promote processes of discernment and insight in other respects. Existing literature in the cognitive psychology of religion rarely bothers with such subtleties. It is common to assume that simply to notice the operation of cognitive biases in religion—say, in supporting belief in supernatural entities who providentially interact in human affairs, or in establishing and reinforcing people's willingness to defer to certain kinds of religious authority—is at the same time to establish the presence of rampant cognitive error, massive resistance to diagnosing and correcting it, and thus the infliction of pernicious cruelties on young children who have no way of escaping the resulting irrational indoctrination.This moral reflex to condemn religious groups because of their characteristic reluctance to acknowledge the role of cognitive biases in their beliefs and practices is understandable given the irrationality, ignorance, or denial that such reluctance suggests. I frankly acknowledge that I share this moral concern. But the actual complexities of religious practice demonstrate that the situation demands a subtler evaluation. Resistance to awareness of cognitive biases exists both inside and outside religious groups; economic and political practices in all eras and of all types have every bit as much to gain from neglecting to enlighten people about their cognitive operations as religious groups do—just consider the techniques employed in commercial advertising and political campaigns. Moreover, religious groups also promote methods of discernment and self-awareness that have historically been, and continue to be, the dominant method by which... (shrink)

This is the first collection of essays exclusively devoted to knowledge from non-knowledge and related issues. It features original contributions from some of the most prominent and up-and-coming scholars working in contemporary epistemology. There is a nascent literature in epistemology about the possibility of inferential knowledge based on premises that are, for one reason or another, not known. The essays in this book explore if and how epistemology can accommodate cases where knowledge is generated from something other than knowledge. Can (...) reasoning from false beliefs generate knowledge? Can reasoning from unjustified beliefs generate knowledge? Can reasoning from gettiered beliefs generate knowledge? Can reasoning from propositions one does not even believe generate knowledge? The contributors to this book tackle these and other questions head-on. Together, they advance the debate about knowledge from non-knowledge in novel and interesting directions. Illuminating Errors will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in epistemology and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

One limitation of medical ethics modeled on ideal moral theory is its relative silence on the aftermath of medical error: not just on the recognition and avoidance of malpractice, wrongdoing, or other such failures of medical ethics, but on how to respond given medical wrongdoing. Ideally, we would never do each other wrong; but given that inevitably we do, as fallible, imperfect agents we require non-ideal ethical guidance. For such non-ideal contexts, Nancy Berlinger’s analysis of medical error and (...) Margaret Walker’s account of moral repair present powerful hermeneutical and practical tools toward understanding and enacting what is needed to restore relationships, trust, and moral standing in the aftermath of medical error and wrongdoing. Where restitutive justice aims to make injured parties whole and retributive justice to mete out punishment, reparative justice, as Walker describes it, “involves the restoration or reconstruction of confidence, trust, and hope in the reality of shared moral standards and of our reliability in meeting and enforcing them.” Medical moral repair is not without its challenges, however, in both theory and practice; the standard ways of holding medical professionals and institutions responsible for medical mistakes or malpractice function retributively and restitutively, either impeding or giving benign inattention to patient-practitioner relationship repair. This paper argues for the value of medical moral repair, while considering some complications of extending and synthesizing Berlinger’s and Walker’s respective accounts on medical error and moral repair. (shrink)

After showing how Deborah Mayo’s error-statistical philosophy of science might be applied to address important questions about the evidential status of computer simulation results, I argue that an error-statistical perspective offers an interesting new way of thinking about computer simulation models and has the potential to significantly improve the practice of simulation model evaluation. Though intended primarily as a contribution to the epistemology of simulation, the analysis also serves to fill in details of Mayo’s epistemology of experiment.

_ Source: _Page Count 12 Bart Streumer makes an interesting case for an error theory in ethics—and for an error theory for normativity more generally, but I will focus on the more restricted target. I offer a reply on behalf of naturalists in ethics. My case for resistance will involve identifying a three-fold ambiguity in his use of the term ‘guarantee’. I conclude with some observations about the implications of theories of reference for moral/ethical terms for the (...) debate. (shrink)

Adaptive behavior critically depends on performance monitoring, the ability to monitor action outcomes and the need to adapt behavior. PM-related brain activity has been linked to guiding decisions about whether action adaptation is warranted. The present study examined whether PM-related brain activity in a flanker task, as measured by electroencephalography, was associated with adaptive behavior in daily life. Specifically, we were interested in the employment of self-control, operationalized as self-control failures, and measured using ecological momentary assessment. Analyses were conducted using (...) an adaptive elastic net regression to predict SCFs from EEG in a sample of 131 participants. The model was fit using within-subject averaged response-locked EEG activity at each electrode and time point within an epoch surrounding the response. We found that higher amplitudes of the error-related negativity were related to fewer SCFs. This suggests that lower error-related activity may relate to lower recruitment of interventive self-control in daily life. Altered cognitive control processes, like PM, have been proposed as underlying mechanisms for various mental disorders. Understanding how alterations in PM relate to regulatory control might therefore aid in delineating how these alterations contribute to different psychopathologies. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 12 Bart Streumer makes an interesting case for an error theory in ethics—and for an error theory for normativity more generally, but I will focus on the more restricted target. I offer a reply on behalf of naturalists in ethics. My case for resistance will involve identifying a three-fold ambiguity in his use of the term ‘guarantee’. I conclude with some observations about the implications of theories of reference for moral/ethical terms for the (...) debate. (shrink)

Though he maintained a significant interest in theoretical aspects of measurement, Henry E. Kyburg, Jr. was critical of the representational theory that in many ways has come to dominate discussions concerning the foundations of measurement. In particular, Kyburg (in Savage and Ehrlich (eds) Philosophical and foundational issues in measurement theory, 1992 ) asserts that the representational theory of measurement, as introduced in (Scott and Suppes, Journal of Symbolic Logic, 23:113–128, 1958 ) and developed in (Krantz et al., Foundations of measurment: (...) additive and polynomial representations. Academic Press, 1971 ), cannot account for the measurement of error. The present work examines and responds to this charge. (shrink)

Philosophers have in recent years displayed an increasing interest in investigating folk metaethical beliefs using rigorous empirical methods. Taken together, these studies put significant pressure on many philosophical theories that depend on the truth of folk moral objectivism, the view that the folk see morality as objectively grounded. Frequently included among the target of criticism is Mackie’s error theory, or more specifically the conceptual claim thereof. Finding this criticism misplaced, Benjamin Fraser tries to exonerate error theory from such (...) accusation by distinguishing different senses of objectivity. In this paper, I show why Fraser’s strategy is not successful so that the pressure empirically brought upon classical error theory is genuine. However, I also argue that even on the new picture suggested by experimental studies, the folk still entertain erroneous beliefs, which, when coupled with plausible metasemantic assumptions and further empirical support, should warrant an error theory after all, though not in its classical form. (shrink)

Recently, Timothy Williamson has argued that considerations about margins of errors can generate a new class of cases where agents have justified true beliefs without knowledge. I think this is a great argument, and it has a number of interesting philosophical conclusions. In this note I’m going to go over the assumptions of Williamson’s argument. I’m going to argue that the assumptions which generate the justification without knowledge are true. I’m then going to go over some of the recent (...) arguments in epistemology that are refuted by Williamson’s work. And I’m going to end with an admittedly inconclusive discussion of what we can know when using an imperfect measuring device. (shrink)

Ginger Schultheis offers a novel and interesting argument against epistemic permissivism. While we think that her argument is ultimately uncompelling, we think its faults are instructive. We explore the relationship between epistemic permissivism, Margin-for-Error principles, and an epistemological version of Dominance reasoning.

Moral abolitionists recommend that we get rid of moral discourse and moral judgement. At first glance this seems repugnant, but abolitionists think that we have overestimated the practical value of our moral framework and that eliminating it would be in our interests. I argue that abolitionism has a surprising amount going for it. Traditionally, abolitionism has been treated as an option available to moral error theorists. Error theorists say that moral discourse and judgement are committed to the existence (...) of moral properties, and that no such properties exist. After error theory is established, abolitionism is one potential way to proceed. However, many error theorists suggest that we retain moral discourse as a sort of fiction. I evaluate some attractions of both fictionalism and abolitionism, arguing that abolitionism is a plausible position. No one doubts that error theorists can be abolitionists. However, what has gone largely undiscussed is that it is open to others to be abolitionists as well. I argue that moral realists of a metaphysically robust sort can and perhaps should be abolitionists. ‘Realist abolitionism’ makes for a surprisingly neat theoretical package, and I conclude that it represents an interesting new option in the theoretical landscape. (shrink)

Unger’s interests encompass both criticisms of the existing, dominant "liberal" order and constructive suggestions about nascent possibilities of postliberal alternatives. The richness and erudition of several hundred pages cannot possibly be suggested in the few paragraphs comprising this section of a review article; therefore, I shall sketch the main lines of the argument baldly, without attempting to reproduce the subtle expository network woven by Unger himself.

Most recent discussions of John Stuart Mill’s System of Logic (1843) neglect the fifth book concerned with logical fallacies. Mill not only follows the revival of interest in the traditional Aristotelian doctrine of fallacies in Richard Whately and Augustus De Morgan, but he also develops new categories and an original analysis which enhance the study of fallacies within the context of what he calls ‘the philosophy of error’. After an exploration of this approach, the essay relates the philosophy of (...) error to the discussion of truth and error in chapter two of On Liberty (1859) concerned with freedom of thought and discussion. Drawing on Socratic and Baconian perspectives, Mill defends both the traditional study of logic against Jevons, Boole, De Morgan, and others, as well as the study of fallacies as the key to maintaining truth and its dissemination in numerous fields, such as science, morality, politics, and religion. In Mill’s view the study of fallacies also liberates ordinary people to explore the truth and falsity of ideas and, as such, to participate in society and politics and develop themselves as progressive beings. (shrink)

This book is a collection of original, interdisciplinary essays on the topic of medical error. Given the complexities of understanding, preventing, and responding to medical error in ethically responsible ways, the scope of the book is fairly broad. The contributors include top scholars and practitioners working in bioethics, communication, law, medicine and philosophy. Their contributions examine preventable causes of medical error, disproportionate impacts of errors on vulnerable populations, disclosure and apology after discovering medical errors, and ethical issues (...) arising in specific medical contexts, such as radiation oncology, psychopathy, and palliative care. They also offer practical recommendations for respecting autonomy, distributing burdens and benefits justly, and minimizing injury to patients and other stakeholders. Ethics and Error in Medicine will be of interest to a wide range of researchers, students, and practitioners in bioethics, philosophy, communication studies, law, and medicine who are interested in the ethics of medical error. (shrink)

In this chapter I explicate and evaluate the concept of medical error. Unlike standard philosophical approaches to analyzing medical phenom- ena in the abstract, I instead address medical error specifi cally within the context of an embodied social world. I illustrate how, as a deeply contex- tual concept, medical error is inextricably tied to the social conditions— and concrete, powerful interests—of the particulars in which it is found. -/- I begin with an analysis that demonstrates the relational (...) quality of medi- cal error, as a functional, outcome-oriented concept, evaluating the origin and context of the term’s emergence, and connecting it to a similarly contextual concept, “standard of care.” I move on to note the concern- ing implications of medical error identifi cation and measurement when viewed through an intersectional standpoint. To do so, I discuss what intersectional approaches can help reveal about our contemporary social world of medicine and public health. Intersectional approaches, as I will explain, focus on how intersections of social identity can unmask social structures that negatively impact groups and individuals. It appears, as -/- I will suggest, that disparities in social goods (e.g., social standing, edu- cation, wealth) complicate our identification of medical error, itself, and compound concerns of equity and access to medical goods for those who have diminished expectations for health. (shrink)

In one of the closing paragraphs of Treatise Book 1, Hume provocatively concludes: ‘Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous’ . Unlike the first clause, the meaning of the second clause is far from obvious. I claim that errors in philosophy are ‘only ridiculous’ for Hume in the sense that – unlike errors in religion – they fail to disturb us psychologically or in practical life. The interesting question, however, is why they fail (...) to disturb us. I suggest that it is their critical role in resolving the psychological instability brought on by philosophical reflection that makes errors in philosophy quite helpful to us and necessary for re-stabilising ourselves. In recognising a positive role for philosophical errors, my account challenges the standard interpretation of Hume's claim according to which ‘ridiculous’ philosophical errors play the merely negative role of being innocuous or safely dismissed. (shrink)

Once upon a time, logic was the philosopher’s tool for analyzing scientific reasoning. Nowadays, probability and statistics have largely replaced logic, and their most popular application—Bayesianism—has replaced the qualitative deductive relationship between a hypothesis h and evidence e with a quantitative measure of h’s probability in light of e.

In recent work, we have argued that a number of disputes of interest to philosophers – including some disputes amongst philosophers themselves – are metalinguistic negotiations. Prima facie, many of these disputes seem to concern worldly, non-linguistic issues directly. However, on our view, they in fact concern, in the first instance, normative questions about the use of linguistic expressions. This will strike many ordinary speakers as counterintuitive. In many of the disputes that we analyze as metalinguistic negotiations, speakers might quite (...) strongly resist the idea that their debate is in any sense about language. In this paper, we explore and provide responses to what we take to be the best versions of an objection that our view involves an unacceptable attribution of false beliefs to ordinary speakers. (shrink)

The article discusses the strategies of translation of «machine texts» on the example of generative transformers (GPT). Currently, the study and development of machine text generation has become an important task for processing and analyzing texts in different languages. Modern technologies of artificial intelligence and neural networks allow us to create powerful tools for activities in this field, which are becoming more and more effective every year. Generative transformers are one of such tools. The study of generative transformers also allows (...) developers to create more accurate and efficient machine translation algorithms, which improves the quality of translations and improves the user experience. In this context, the features of machine texts created by generative transformers, their patterns, errors and imperfections, which require special translation strategies, deserve special interest. Today we can say that the generation of unique and relevant texts is a routine task that has been automated. Nevertheless, certain restrictions for the use of such texts still exist, in particular, their use requires the use of appropriate translation strategies. The paper proposes the author’s typology of translation strategies, where, taking into account the features of AST, it is proposed to add a substrategy of tertiary-moderation translation. (shrink)

Fernández offers an account of the nature of episodic memory that marries two core ideas: role-functionalism about episodic memory, and self-reflexive mnemonic content. One payoff of this view is that episodic memory judgments are immune to error through misidentification. Fernández takes this to reveal something important about the nature of one’s self-awareness in memory and our first-person conception of ourselves. However, once one sees why such judgments are immune in this way, according to the proposed account, the fact that (...) they are immune becomes moot. While technically immune to error through misidentification, episodic memory judgments are not grounded in a way such that they have any interesting epistemological import for the subject, and any insights about our self-awareness and self-conception are directly derivable from the metaphysics of memory content alone. (shrink)

Are those judgments that we make on the basis of our memories immune to error through misidentification? In this paper, I discuss a phenomenon which seems to suggest that they are not; the phenomenon of observer memory. I argue that observer memories fail to show that memory judgments are not IEM. However, the discussion of observer memories will reveal an interesting fact about the perspectivity of memory; a fact that puts us on the right path towards explaining why (...) memory judgments are indeed IEM. The main tenet in the account of IEM to be proposed is that this aspect of memory is grounded, on the one hand, on the intentionality of perception and, on the other hand, on the relation between the intentionality of perception and that of memory. (shrink)

In the United States, the racial and ethnic statistics published by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) assume that each member of the U.S. population has a race and ethnicity and that if a member is black or white with respect to his risk of one disease, he is the same race with respect to his risk of another. Such an assumption is mistaken. Race and ethnicity are taken by the NCHS to be an intrinsic property of members of (...) a population, when they should be taken to depend on interest. The actual or underlying race or ethnicity of members of a population depends on the risk whose variation within the population we wish to describe or explain. (shrink)

It has been observed that, unlike other kinds of singular judgments, mental self-ascriptions are immune to error through misidentification: they may go wrong, but not as a result of mistaking someone else’s mental states for one’s own. Although recent years have witnessed increasing interest in this phenomenon, three basic questions about it remain without a satisfactory answer: what is exactly an error through misidentification? What does immunity to such errors consist in? And what does it take to explain (...) the fact that mental self-ascriptions exhibit this sort of immunity? The aim of this paper is to bring these questions into focus, propose some tentative answers and use them to show that one prominent attempt to explain the immunity to error through misidentification of mental self-ascriptions is unsuccessful. (shrink)

Since Sydney Shoemaker published his seminal article ‘Self-Reference and Self-Awareness’ in 1968, the notion of ‘Immunity to Error through Misidentification’ has received much attention. It crops up in discussions of personal identity, indexical thought and introspection, and has been used to interpret remarks made by philosophers from Wittgenstein to William James. The precise significance of IEM is often unspecified in these discussions, however. It is unclear, for example, whether it constitutes an important status of judgments, whether it explains an (...) important characteristic of judgments, or whether it merely marks an important characteristic of judgments. Nevertheless, reference to IEM abounds, making this obscure notion seem all the more significant. (shrink)

How does a self-described “simple teacher of religion” at the College of the Holy Cross get involved in bioethics? Nothing in my training or experience had prepared me for involvement in medicine. Much like that of my moral theology professor and then mentor, Richard McCormick, my training was in moral theology and social ethics. I also had an abiding interest in the courts and constitutional law. That interest led to a doctoral dissertation at the University of Southern California's Program in (...) Social Ethics on “The Supreme Court's Understanding of Religion in Conscientious Objector Cases.” Interestingly, doctoral work in the late 1960s on the ethical dimension of war was the starting point for other ethicists such as Leroy Walters and James Childress who subsequently became early voices in bioethics. (shrink)

All candid philosophers, in setting out on their great task of coordinating and criticizing the whole range of human thought, must often feel embarrassed by the limitations of their own knowledge. Their difficulties in dealing with scientific thought have increased very greatly during the last thirty years. For, while science has been rapidly growing more complex and abstruse, philosophers have been tending to require a more intimate knowledge of it. They are no longer interested only in scientific methods ; they (...) are beginning to find significance in particular propositions and principles. Some of these cannot be comprehended in their entirety by anyone who has not submitted himself to a training so specialized and so severe as to be almost incompatible with the width of outlook that makes the philosopher. Accordingly, philosophers have abandoned all attempts to acquire their knowledge of certain branches of science from the original memoirs and expository treatises addressed to scientists; they have recourse to interpreters. (shrink)

One broadly recognised characteristic feature of (a core subset of) the self-attributions constitutive of self-knowledge is that they are ‘immune to error through misidentification’ (hereafter IEM). In the last thirty years, Evans’s notion of “identification-freedom” (Evans 1982) has been central to most classical approaches to IEM. In the Evansian picture, it is not clear, however, whether there is room for a description of what may be the strongest and most interesting variant of IEM; namely what Pryor (1999) has (...) first brought to the fore under the name “Which-object IEM”, and which I’ll prefer calling existential IEM. I argue that recent development of relativist frameworks in semantics and pragmatics, particularly in Recanati (2007a-b), (2009), (2010), (2012a), may be precisely of a nature to address this limitation. The relativist theory of IEM, and in particular its suitability to cover existential IEM, may superficially seem to stem from a rejection of the core elements of the classical identification-freedom approach. However, I hope to show that, modulo a clarification and richer un-derstanding of the relevant notions of identification and identification-freedom, the relativist theory of IEM can be seen as both pushing further and complementing Evans’s intuitions, rather than conflicting with them. (shrink)

Since Sydney Shoemaker published his seminal article ‘Self-Reference and Self-Awareness’ in 1968, the notion of ‘Immunity to Error through Misidentification’ has received much attention. It crops up in discussions of personal identity, indexical thought and introspection, and has been used to interpret remarks made by philosophers from Wittgenstein to William James. The precise significance of IEM is often unspecified in these discussions, however. It is unclear, for example, whether itconstitutesan important status of judgments, whether itexplainsan important characteristic of judgments, (...) or whether it merelymarksan important characteristic of judgments. Nevertheless, reference to IEM abounds, making this obscure notion seem all the more significant. (shrink)

This paper is a discussion of Michael Thau's interesting critique in Chapter 2 of Consciousness and Cognition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, of the common view that beliefs are internal states.