In this hugely influential book, Laclau and Mouffe examine the workings of hegemony and contemporary social struggles, and their significance for democratic theory. With the emergence of new social and political identities, and the frequent attacks on Left theory for its essentialist underpinnings, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy remains as relevant as ever, positing a much-needed antidote against ‘Third Way’ attempts to overcome the antagonism between Left and Right.

One paradigmatic argument from evil against theism claims that, (1) if God exists, then there is no gratuitous evil. But (2) there is gratuitous evil, so (3) God does not exist. I consider three deontological strategies for resisting this argument. Each strategy restructures existing theodicies which deny (2) so that they instead deny (1). The first two strategies are problematic on their own, but their primary weaknesses vanish when they are combined to form the third strategy, resulting in (...) a promising new approach to the problem of evil. (shrink)

This essay aims to disentangle various types of anti-realism, and to disarm the considerations that are deployed to support them. I distinguish empiricist versions of anti-realism from constructivist versions, and, within each of these, semantic arguments from epistemological arguments. The centerpiece of my defense of a modest version of realism - real realism - is the thought that there are resources within our ordinary ways of talking about and knowing about everyday objects that enable us to extend our claims to (...) unobservable entities. This strategy, the Galilean strategy, is explained using the historical example of the telescope. (shrink)

This essay aims to disentangle various types of anti-realism, and to disarm the considerations that are deployed to support them. I distinguish empiricist versions of anti-realism from constructivist versions, and, within each of these, semantic arguments from epistemological arguments. The centerpiece of my defense of a modest version of realism - real realism - is the thought that there are resources within our ordinary ways of talking about and knowing about everyday objects that enable us to extend our claims to (...) unobservable entities. This strategy, the Galilean strategy, is explained using the historical example of the telescope. (shrink)

In the Fragment on Evil, Hume announces that he “shall not employ any rhetoric in a philosophical argument, where reason alone ought to be hearkened to.” To employ the rhetorical strategy, in the context of the Fragment, just is to “enumerate all the evils, incident to human life, and display them, with eloquence, in their proper colours.” However, in Part 11 of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Hume employs precisely this rhetorical strategy. I discuss three interpretations that might (...) account for Hume’s decision to employ the strategy in the Dialogues but not the Fragment. The heart of this discussion concerns the relationship between reason and rhetoric. The Dialogues can be understood as part of the education of Pamphilus. Consequently, the three interpretations align with three ways of understanding the roles that reason and rhetoric play in Hume’s views on pedagogy and education (or more specifically, Philo’s attitude towards the education of Pamphilus). (shrink)

This paper is an interpretation and defense of Richard Levins’ “The Strategy of Model Building in Population Biology,” which has been extremely influential among biologists since its publication 40 years ago. In this article, Levins confronted some of the deepest philosophical issues surrounding modeling and theory construction. By way of interpretation, I discuss each of Levins’ major philosophical themes: the problem of complexity, the brute-force approach, the existence and consequence of tradeoffs, and robustness analysis. I argue that Levins’ article (...) is concerned, at its core, with justifying the use of multiple, idealized models in population biology. (shrink)

In this journal theme introduction, first, I explain how comparative philosophy as explored in the journal Comparative Philosophy is understood and how it is intrinsically related to the constructive engagement strategy. Second, to characterize more clearly and accurately some related methodological points of the constructive-engagement strategy, and also to explain how constructive engagement is possible, I introduce some needed conceptual and explanatory resources and a meta-methodological framework and endeavor to identify adequacy conditions for methodological guiding principles in comparative (...) studies. Third, as a case analysis, I show how the constructive-engagement reflective practice bears on recent studies of Chinese and comparative Chinese-Western philosophy, especially in the past decade, for two purposes: to illustrate the foregoing theoretic characterization of the constructive engagement strategy, and to identify and explain some constructive morals that might have general significance for comparative studies. (shrink)

Cameron et al ’s1 ethical considerations about the ‘Dualism of Values’ in pandemic response emphasise the need to strike a fair balance between the interests of the less vulnerable to COVID-19 and the interests of the more vulnerable. Those considerations are at the basis of ethical defences of focused protection strategies.2 One example is the proposal put forward in the Great Barrington Declaration. It presented focused protection strategies as more ethical alternatives to lockdowns which would prevent lockdowns’ ‘irreparable damage, with (...) the underprivileged disproportionately harmed’.3 Here we want to suggest that a version of Cameron et al ’s analysis can be applied to the case of vaccines to support a focused protection vaccination strategy. At this stage, we should limit vaccination to the vulnerable and not target children in COVID-19 vaccination strategies. We argue that, given the current state of knowledge about COVID-19, immunity and vaccines, it would be wrong to pose the costs and risks of vaccines on children for three reasons. First, they are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination …. (shrink)

According to the paradigm of adaptive rationality, successful inference and prediction methods tend to be local and frugal. As a complement to work within this paradigm, we investigate the problem of selecting an optimal combination of prediction methods from a given toolbox of such local methods, in the context of changing environments. These selection methods are called meta-inductive strategies, if they are based on the success-records of the toolbox-methods. No absolutely optimal MI strategy exists—a fact that we call the (...) “revenge of ecological rationality”. Nevertheless one can show that a certain MI strategy exists, called “AW”, which is universally long-run optimal, with provably small short-run losses, in comparison to any set of prediction methods that it can use as input. We call this property universal access-optimality. Local and short-run improvements over AW are possible, but only at the cost of forfeiting universal access-optimality. The last part of the paper includes an empirical study of MI strategies in application to an 8-year-long data set from the Monash University Footy Tipping Competition. (shrink)

In the Fragment on Evil, Hume announces that he “shall not employ any rhetoric in a philosophical argument, where reason alone ought to be hearkened to.” To employ the rhetorical strategy, in the context of the Fragment, just is to “enumerate all the evils, incident to human life, and display them, with eloquence, in their proper colours.” However, in Part 11 of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Hume employs precisely this rhetorical strategy. I discuss three interpretations that might (...) account for Hume’s decision to employ the strategy in the Dialogues but not the Fragment. The heart of this discussion concerns the relationship between reason and rhetoric. The Dialogues can be understood as part of the education of Pamphilus. Consequently, the three interpretations align with three ways of understanding the roles that reason and rhetoric play in Hume’s views on pedagogy and education (or more specifically, Philo’s attitude towards the education of Pamphilus). (shrink)

I will defend explication, in a Carnapian sense, as a strategy for revisionary ontologists and radical sceptics. The idea is that these revisionary philosophers should explicitly commit to using expressions like “S knows that p” and “Fs exist” differently from how these expressions are used in everyday contexts. I will first motivate this commitment for these revisionary philosophers. Then, I will address the main worries that arise for this strategy: the unintelligibility worry and the topic shift worry. I (...) will focus on the latter worry and provide a solution that makes use of a distinction between practically and theoretically oriented beliefs. On my view, the revisionary philosophers who admit to departing from the everyday language can still criticize everyday knowledge and existence claims, by arguing that while the language embedded in these claims is suitable for beliefs-1, it is not suitable for beliefs-2. (shrink)

A powerful reply to a range of familiar anti-physicalist arguments has recently been developed. According to this reply, our possession of phenomenal concepts can explain the facts that the anti-physicalist claims can only be explained by a non-reductive account of phenomenal consciousness. Chalmers (2006) argues that the phenomenal concept strategy is doomed to fail. This article presents the phenomenal concept strategy, Chalmers' argument against it, and a defence of the strategy against his.

Discussions on the Anthropocene as the geology of mankind imply the question whether globalized technology such as energy technologies or A.I. ought to be first and foremost conceptualized as a strategy of the human in relation to nature or as a strategy of some humans over others. I argue that both positions are mirrored in the philosophy and sociology of technology through the concepts of technology as an extension and as a fetish. The extension concept understands technology as (...) an extension of the human body and its capabilities, resulting in a local ‘inward’ perspective. The fetish concept offers a contrary ‘outward’ perspective by drawing attention to the global socio-material context of modern technology. Despite their differences, I argue that both concepts share an underlying operation principle of technology as functional simplification. Technology always involves a functional simplification of physical as well as social causality. Sociologists and philosophers of technology would do well not to give primacy to the former as it leads to the belief in technology as a universal tool that neglects how technology is not embedded in but consists of (unequal) social arrangements. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Globally, family firms are the dominant organizational form. Family involvement in business and unique family dynamics impacts organizational strategy and performance. However, family control of business has rarely been adopted as a discriminating variable in the organizations and the natural environment (ONE) research field. Drawing on the theory of planned behavior we develop a conceptual framework of the drivers of proactive environmental strategy (PES) in family firms. We argue that family involvement in business influences the attitudes, subjective norms, (...) and perceived behavioral control of a firm’s dominant coalition. Together these factors determine the extent of the dominant coalition’s intentions to undertake PES. Further, family firms with lower levels of relationship conflict within the controlling family will be more successful in translating the dominant coalition’s intentions to allocate resources for the pursuit of PES. Research implications of the theory are discussed. (shrink)

To manage conflicts between temptation and commitment, people use self-control. The process model of self-control outlines different strategies for managing the onset and experience of temptation. However, little is known about the decision-making factors underlying strategy selection. Across three experiments (N = 317), we tested whether the moral valence of a commitment predicts how people advise attentional self-control strategies. In Experiments 1 and 2, people rated attentional focus strategies as significantly more effective for people tempted to break moral relative (...) to immoral commitments, even when controlling for perceived temptation and trait self-control. Experiment 3 showed that as people perceived commitments to have more positive moral valence, they judged attentional focus strategies to be significantly more effective relative to attentional distraction strategies. Moreover, this effect was partly mediated by perceived differences in motivation. These results indicate that moralization informs decision-making processes related to self-control strategy selection. (shrink)

Definitions of what it is to be a stakeholder are divided into "claimant" definitions requiring some sort of claim on the services of a business, "influencer" definitions requiring only a capacity to influence the workings of the business, and "combinatory" definitions allowing for either or both of these requirements. It is argued that for the purposes of business ethics, stakeholding has to be about improving the moral conduct of businesses by directing them at serving more than just the interests of (...) owners. On that basis, influencer definitions are eliminated on the grounds that they only concern morally neutral strategic considerations and combinatory definitions on the grounds that the combining of ethical and strategic considerations they promise can be less confusingly achieved through an exclusively claimant definition. It is concluded that for the purposes of business ethics, stakeholders are claimants towards whom businesses owe perfect or imperfect moral duties beyond those generally owed to people at large. (shrink)

Deductivism has been variously presented as an evaluative thesis and as an interpretive one. I argue that deductivism fails as a universal evaluative thesis, and as such that its value as an interpretive thesis must be supported on other grounds. As a reconstructive strategy, deductivism is justified only on the grounds that an arguer is, or ought to be, aiming at the deductive standard of evidence. As such, the reconstruction of an argument as deductive must be supported by contextual (...) and situational factors including facts about the arguer. Further, the plausibility of deductivism as a normative thesis is not tied to its plausibility as a descriptive or interpretive thesis. (shrink)

Recent studies have shown that self‐explanation is an effective metacognitive strategy, but how can it be leveraged to improve students' learning in actual classrooms? How do instructional treatments that emphasizes self‐explanation affect students' learning, as compared to other instructional treatments? We investigated whether self‐explanation can be scaffolded effectively in a classroom environment using a Cognitive Tutor, which is intelligent instructional software that supports guided learning by doing. In two classroom experiments, we found that students who explained their steps during (...) problem‐solving practice with a Cognitive Tutor learned with greater understanding compared to students who did not explain steps. The explainers better explained their solutions steps and were more successful on transfer problems. We interpret these results as follows: By engaging in explanation, students acquired better‐integrated visual and verbal declarative knowledge and acquired less shallow procedural knowledge. The research demonstrates that the benefits of self‐explanation can be achieved in a relatively simple computer‐based approach that scales well for classroom use. (shrink)

A popular three-stage argument appraisal strategy calls for (1) identifying the parts of the argument, (2) classifYing the argument as deductive, inductive, or some other type, and (3) appraising the argument using the standards appropriate for the type. This strategy fails for a number of reasons. I propose a comprehensive alternative approach that distinguishes between inductive, deductive, and other standards; calls for the successive application of standards combined with assumption-ascription, according to policies that depend for their selection on (...) the goals of the appraiser; and provides for qualified reasoning. (shrink)

Integrating corporate social responsibility (CSR) into a for-profit organization’s business activities is fraught with tensions. This paper reports a case study of a construction company, exploring how different tensions emerged to challenge company-level aspirations for strategic CSR integration. The study identifies three types of persistent CSR tensions and four management practices, discussing how the management practices led the organization to navigate CSR tensions in both active and defensive ways. Furthermore, the study explicates why the case company succeeded in integrating CSR (...) into formal business strategy and shared attitudes but struggled with CSR integration in the domain of day-to-day operations. The paper contributes to the CSR literature by developing a tension-centric perspective on CSR development. It highlights the necessity of tension navigation at both the organizational and the action levels, the key role of active (as opposed to defensive) navigation of CSR tensions, and the importance of alignment between organizational and action levels in navigating tensions for sustaining strategic focus on CSR over time. (shrink)

Influencing students’ educational achievements first requires understanding the underlying processes that lead to variation in students’ performance. Researchers are therefore increasingly interested in analyzing the differences in behavior displayed in educational assessments rather than merely assessing their outcomes. Such analyses provide valuable information on the differences between successful and unsuccessful students and help to design appropriate interventions. Complex problem solving (CPS) tasks have proven to provide particularly rich process data as they allow for a multitude of behaviors several of which (...) can lead to a successful performance. So far, this data has often been analyzed on a rather aggregated level looking at an average number of actions or predefined strategies. with only a few articles investigating the specific actions performed. In this paper, we illustrate and discuss a more detailed report the results of an exploratory analysis of CPS process data based on the specific actions performed.log-files that is aimed at distinguishing between students that applied the correct strategy to a problem but failed to solve it and those applying the strategy successfully. In that, the sequence of behavior displayed is reduced to interpretable parts (n-grams) that allow searching for meaningful differences between the two groups of students. This level of analysis allows finding previously undefined or unknown patterns within the data and increases our understanding of the processes underlying successful problem -solving behavior even further. (shrink)

Responsible research practices are critical to maintaining integrity in research and the provision of institutional trainings is an important means of promoting research integrity. However, studies show contrasting results on the efficacy of institutional training and that these approaches may not be fully effective in promoting research integrity among individuals and improving the overall climate in research integrity. Therefore, a more comprehensive multi-dimensional learning strategy seems to be needed. This includes continuous and tailored training at different institutional levels, the (...) incorporation of training sessions focusing on the development of the moral character of researchers, and the use of different mentoring practices. With this comprehensive approach, research institutions can foster a culture of integrity in research, improve the overall research integrity climate and promote responsible research practices by individuals. (shrink)

According to the methodological principle called ‘robustness’, empirical evidence is more reliable when it is generated using multiple, independent (experimental) routes that converge on the same result. As it happens, robustness as a methodological strategy is quite popular amongst philosophers. However, despite its popularity, my goal here is to criticize the value of this principle on historical grounds. My historical reasons take into consideration some recent history of astroparticle physics concerning the search for WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles), one (...) of the main candidates for cosmic dark matter. On the basis of these reasons, I assert that robustness, at least in this historical case we are considering, has less value than usually assumed by philosophers. (shrink)

The need for innovative development of healthcare institutions is determined by the necessity to increase the efficiency of organizational processes based on the formation of new models of cooperation, which will make it possible to get access to new technologies and knowledge. The goal of the study is to determine the parameters of the impact of innovative open cooperation strategy and the strategy of innovative closed cooperation of healthcare institutions on the effectiveness of their organizational structure in the (...) context of dissemination and the use of knowledge. Simulation modeling was applied to generate the most effective organizational management structure in the context of innovative cooperation and knowledge exchange within the organizational processes “Inside-out” and “Inside-in”. It is substantiated that the strategies of innovative cooperation “Open Innovation/Closed Innovation” have a significant impact on the organizational structure of management of healthcare institutions in terms of the “degree of centralization” (Dci), “degree of mediation” (Dii), and “degree of centralization of powers” (Dpi). The values of the selected criteria range from 25,52% to 61,50% in the case of Dii, and from 34,53% to 52,63% in the case of Dci, which indicates a higher efficiency of organizational knowledge exchange processes in healthcare institutions, which adhere to the Open Innovation strategy of innovative cooperation. Therefore, there are significant differences in the effectiveness of the management’s organizational structure depending on the degree of openness of innovative cooperation of healthcare institutions. The strategy of innovative openness allows increasing the number and quality of connections in the context of knowledge exchange between the subjects (actors, agents) of the organizational structure (in a broad sense, considering internal and external levels of externality) of healthcare institutions, regardless of the distance between them and the level of similarity. (shrink)

Strategic games require reasoning about other people’s and one’s own beliefs or intentions. Although they have clear commonalities with psychological tests of theory of mind, they are not clearly related to theory of mind tests for children between 9 and 10 years of age “Flobbe et al. J Logic Language Inform 17(4):417–442 (2008)”. We studied children’s (5–12 years of age) individual differences in how they played a strategic game by analyzing the strategies that they applied in a zero, first, and (...) second-order reasoning task. For the zero-order task, we found two subgroups with different accuracy levels. For the first-order task, subgroups of children applied different suboptimal strategies or an optimal strategy. For the second-order task only suboptimal strategies were present. Strategy use for all tasks was related to age. The 5- and 6-year old children were additionally tested on theory of mind understanding and executive functioning. Strategy-use in these children was related to working memory, but not to theory of mind after correction for age, verbal ability and general IQ. (shrink)

Viruses have generally been thought of as infectious agents. New data on mimivirus, however, suggests a reinterpretation of this thought. Earth’s biosphere seems to contain many more viruses than previously thought and they are relevant in the maintenance of ecosystems and biodiversity. Viruses are not considered to be alive because they are not free-living entities and do not have cellular units. Current hypotheses indicate that some viruses may have been the result of genomic reduction of cellular life forms. However, new (...) studies relating to the origins of biological systems suggest that viruses could also have originated during the transition from First to the Last Universal Common Ancestor. Within this setting, life has been established as chemical informational system and could be interpreted as a macrocode of multiple layers. The first entity to acquire these features was the First Universal Common Ancestor that evolved to an intermediate ancestral that could be named T-LUCA and be equated to Woese’s concept of progenotes. T-LUCA may have remained as undifferentiated subsystems with viruses-like structures. The net result is that both cellular life forms and viruses shared protein synthesis apparatuses. In short, virus is a strategy of life reached by two paths: T-LUCAs like entities and the reduction of cellular life forms. (shrink)

Viruses have generally been thought of as infectious agents. New data on mimivirus, however, suggests a reinterpretation of this thought. Earth’s biosphere seems to contain many more viruses than previously thought and they are relevant in the maintenance of ecosystems and biodiversity. Viruses are not considered to be alive because they are not free-living entities and do not have cellular units. Current hypotheses indicate that some viruses may have been the result of genomic reduction of cellular life forms. However, new (...) studies relating to the origins of biological systems suggest that viruses could also have originated during the transition from First to the Last Universal Common Ancestor. Within this setting, life has been established as chemical informational system and could be interpreted as a macrocode of multiple layers. The first entity to acquire these features was the First Universal Common Ancestor that evolved to an intermediate ancestral that could be named T-LUCA and be equated to Woese’s concept of progenotes. T-LUCA may have remained as undifferentiated subsystems with viruses-like structures. The net result is that both cellular life forms and viruses shared protein synthesis apparatuses. In short, virus is a strategy of life reached by two paths: T-LUCAs like entities and the reduction of cellular life forms. (shrink)

While the literature on the effective management of business and natural environment interfaces is rich and growing, there are still two questions regarding which the literature has yet to reach a definitive conclusion: (1) what is the interactive effect between internal and external drivers on a proactive environmental strategy (PES)? and (2) does a PES influence firm's performance? Drawing on the resource-based view for the internal drivers' perspective and institutional and legitimacy theories for the external drivers' perspective, this study (...) suggests that the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on a PES is moderated by the intensity of government regulations and customers' sensitivity to environmental issues. The authors also examine the relationship between the PES and a firm's performance in terms of sales and profit growth. Implications are discussed regarding the role of a PES in achieving a competitive advantage in the marketplace. (shrink)

Research investigating the intricacies of how self-regulated writing strategies are used in a finely focused area of the second language writing process is still lacking. This study takes a mixed-methods approach to explore Chinese English as a Foreign Language learners’ use of self-regulated writing strategies when revising based on automated, peer, and teacher feedback in an online EFL writing context. Thirty-six Chinese university learners filled in three questionnaires. In addition, four learners followed a think-aloud protocol while revising and responding to (...) a stimulated recall interview to provide further data. The results revealed that learners employed an array of self-regulated writing strategies to attain their feedback revision goals. Learners used more cognitive strategies when revising based on automated feedback compared with peer and teacher feedback and more motivational strategies when revising based on teacher feedback. The think-aloud data and stimulated recall interviews coincided with the quantitative findings. Textual analysis revealed that feedback type and quantity were associated with self-regulated writing strategy use. (shrink)

I explore the evolution of strategies in an Augmented Stag Hunt game that adds a punishing strategy to the ordinary Stag Hunt strategies of cooperating, which aims for optimality, and defecting, which “plays it safe.” Cooperating weakly dominates punishing and defecting is the unique evolutionarily stable strategy. Nevertheless, for a wide class of Augmented Stag Hunts, polymorphic strategies combining punishing and cooperating collectively have greater attracting power for replicator dynamics than that of the ESS. The analysis here lends (...) theoretical support to the altruistic punishment hypothesis in the social sciences. (shrink)

This paper investigates the exemplarity of medicine in Foucault's analyses of knowledge generally. By tracing the development of his concept of power and its relation to knowledge, it offers an account of Foucault's unconventional philosophical project. Finally, it specifies Foucault's strategy for undermining processes of normalisation.

The paper explores the distinction between two doctrines, both of which inform theory construction in much of modern cognitive psychology: the representational theory of mind and the computational theory of mind. According to the former, propositional attitudes are to be construed as relations that organisms bear to mental representations. According to the latter, mental processes have access only to formal (nonsemantic) properties of the mental representations over which they are defined.The following claims are defended: (1) That the traditional dispute between (...) “rational” and “naturalistic” psychology is plausibly viewed as an argument about the status of the computational theory of mind. Rational psychologists accept a formality condition on the specification of mental processes; naturalists do not. (2) That to accept the formality condition is to endorse a version of methodological solipsism. (3) That the acceptance of some such condition is warranted, at least for that part of psychology which concerns itself with theories of the mental causation of behavior. This is because: (4) such theories require nontransparent taxonomies of mental states; and (5) nontransparent taxonomies individuate mental states without reference to their semantic properties. Equivalently, (6) nontransparent taxonomies respect the way that the organism represents the object of its propositional attitudes toitself, and it is this representation which functions in the causation of behavior.The final section of the paper considers the prospect for a naturalistic psychology: one which defines its generalizations over relations between mental representations and their environmental causes, thus seeking to account for the semantic properties of propositional attitudes. Two related arguments are proposed, both leading to the conclusion that no such research strategy is likely to prove fruitful. (shrink)

This study intended to test whether attachment to one’s own residential place at neighborhood level could represent a coping response for the elderly (consistently with the “docility hypothesis;” Lawton, 1982), when dealing with the demands of unfamiliar environments, in order to balance their reduction of spatial abilities. Specifically, a sequential path was tested, in which neighborhood attachment was expected to play a buffer role between lowered spatial competence and neighborhood satisfaction. The participants (N = 264), senior citizens (over 65-year-old), responded (...) to a questionnaire including the measures of spatial self-efficacy, spatial anxiety, attitude toward wayfinding, residential attachment and residential satisfaction. Results from the mediation analysis showed that a lower perceived spatial self-efficacy is associated to a higher spatial anxiety, and both promote a more negative attitude toward wayfinding tasks in non-familiar places. This leads to a higher attachment to one’s own neighborhood, which in turn predicts a higher residential satisfaction. Thus, the “closure” response of becoming more attached to their residential place may be an adaptive strategy of the elderly for compensating the Person-Environment (P-E) mis-fit (Lawton and Nahemow, 1973) when they feel unable (or less able) to cope with the demands of unfamiliar environments. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to assess the relationship between anti-physicalist arguments in the philosophy of mind and anti-naturalist arguments in metaethics, and to show how the literature on the mind-body problem can inform metaethics. Among the questions we will consider are: (1) whether a moral parallel of the knowledge argument can be constructed to create trouble for naturalists, (2) the relationship between such a "Moral Knowledge Argument" and the familiar Open Question Argument, and (3) how naturalists can respond (...) to the Moral Twin Earth argument. We will give particular attention to recent arguments in the philosophy of mind that aim to show that anti-physicalist arguments can be defused by acknowledging a distinctive kind of conceptual dualism between the phenomenal and the physical. This tactic for evading anti-physicalist arguments has come to be known as the Phenomenal Concept Strategy. We will propose a metaethical version of this strategy, which we shall call the `Moral Concept Strategy'. We suggest that the Moral Concept Strategy offers the most promising way out of these anti-naturalist arguments, though significant challenges remain. (shrink)

In his political works, Thomas Hobbes proliferates arguments and overdetermines his conclusions. This article hypothesizes that at least some of this overdetermination was intentional. It was part of a “convergent strategy” meant to appeal to a broad, diverse, and unknown audience. The article draws on Leviathan to offer evidence for this hypothesis.

The aim of this research was to set a proposed strategy for achieving institutional integrity in the University of Ha’il (UoH), Saudi Arabia, in the light of the National Centre of Assessment and Academic Accreditation (NCAAA) Standards. This was accomplished through acknowledging theoretical and philosophical frameworks of institutional integrity and their obstacles in university educational institutions and displaying the institutional standards of the National Centre of Assessment and Academic Accreditation. This research depended on the descriptive method and employed the (...) (SWOT) Analysis to examine the status of UoH. The research confirmed that UoH implemented policies to support institutional values and research integrity. Furthermore, the university has employed mechanisms and procedures for institutional values and mentorships and has a declared policy for disclosure of information and access of necessary information to all beneficiaries. The university needs to set some mechanisms in place to ensure fairness and equality in performance assessments or to implement integrity standards in processes of employment and recruitment. (shrink)

A focused review of the literature on reasoning suggests that mechanisms based upon contraries are of fundamental importance in various abilities. At the same time, the importance of contraries in the human perceptual experience of space has been recently demonstrated in experimental studies. Solving geometry problems represents an interesting case as both reasoning abilities and the manipulation of perceptual–figural aspects are involved.In this study we focus on perceptual changes in geometrical problem solving processes in order to understand whether a mental (...) manipulation in terms of opposites might help. Four conditions were studied, two of which concerned the search for contraries as an implicit or explicit strategy.Results demonstrated that contraries, when used explicitly in solution processes, constitute an effective heuristic: The number of correct solutions increased, less time was needed to find a solution and participants were oriented towards the use of perception-based solutions—not only wer.. (shrink)

In our commentary on Lynch et al.’s target paper, we focus on decomposition as a research strategy. We argue that not only the presumptive microbial causes but also their supposed phenotypic effects need to be decomposed relative to each other. Such a dual decomposition strategy ought to improve the way in which causal claims in microbiome research can be made and understood.