In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Ambiguities of Mild Cognitive ImpairmentTim Thornton (bio)Keywordsclassification, disease, mild cognitive impairment, normative, valuesCorner and Bond's paper (2006) raises some key ethical questions about the classification and diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). In this commentary, I wish to revise some of the general issues about the classification of mental disorder raised by this particular classificatory concept. The central issue raised is the connection between the pathologic status of (...) a condition and what I term the plain facts about the frequency and nature of its symptoms.There are a number of ethical questions raised by applying the label of MCI. Centrally, perhaps, is the concern, illustrated by the case vignettes, that a diagnosis carries negative repercussions that might outweigh the more narrowly medical advantages of an early diagnosis. But although that concern may be appropriate, such ethical complications are a danger of any psychiatric classification or diagnosis, even the most well grounded. Any psychiatric diagnosis can carry a danger of stigma, for example.What seems to make such ethical concerns more serious in this case—at least to a philosopher outsider—is the implicit further concern that MCI is not a real, objective, or, to use a more medical term, valid category or classification. If it is not valid, then any negative connotations of the diagnosis will not be outweighed by medical technological achievements. In other words, the further ethical issues are given much greater weight if the question of validity is not satisfactorily resolved.The question of the reality, objectivity, or validity of MCI can be divided into two issues:1. Is MCI a real, objective, or valid feature of psychological phenomenology?2. Is MCI a real, objective, or valid psychological illness, disease, or pathology?A condition might be a real, objective, or valid feature of psychological phenomenology without being a real illness. It might be some other aspect of human living. Szasz (1960) suggests that this is the case with mental illness (he might more properly say "so-called mental illness") as a whole. But, less controversially, the unusual ability to calculate, mentally and in a flash, the date of future Easter Sundays is a genuine feature of human living—some people possess the ability even if most do not—without either it, or its lack, being an illness. Being real as an illness is a very specific kind of being. It is this, I suggest, that raises difficulties in the case of MCI by contrast with the easier question of whether something is a genuine feature of human living in some other way. [End Page 21]From "normal" and "normative" to "correct" and "incorrect"Corner and Bond (2006) usefully suggest that the question of whether MCI is real is made more difficult by an ambiguity in the sense of the word normal. They suggest that although "physiologic and cognitive decline is assumed to be a normal experience" this still leaves "boundary problems" about "distinguishing normal aging from disease" (Corner and Bond 2006, 3–4). Thus, if the symptoms of MCI are continuous with the ordinary phenomena of physiologic and cognitive decline, then they might also be merely normal. But this does not settle the status of MCI because normal can mean either "normative, that is, usual; or it can mean nonpathologic" (Corner and Bond 2006, 4).On the assumption that MCI is at least continuous with phenomena that are normal, then its symptoms might be normal in the sense of usual but nevertheless pathologic: an inevitable illness. Or they might be usual and nonpathologic, that is, merely a feature of aging that, although regrettable, lacks the connotations of illness (e.g., the appropriateness, if not the possibility, of treatment). (In principle on the assumption in play—that the symptoms of MCI are normal—they might be unusual but nonpathologic akin, for example, to an improved ability to solve crosswords with age that might affect a small lucky proportion of the population. Perhaps such a crossword puzzler might be reassured by their doctor: "Well that is very unusual but there is no need to worry: it is not a symptom of any illness. You are perfectly normal.")Thus the question "Is MCI normal... (shrink)

One of the tasks that recent philosophy of psychiatry has taken upon itself is to extend the range of understanding to some of those aspects of psychopathology that Jaspers deemed beyond its limits. Given the fundamental difficulties of offering a literal interpretation of the contents of primary delusions, a number of alternative strategies have been put forward including regarding them as abnormal versions of framework propositions described by Wittgenstein in On Certainty. But although framework propositions share some of the apparent (...) epistemic features of primary delusions, their role in partially constituting the sense of inquiry rules out their role in helping to understand delusions. (shrink)

A solution to the sorites paradox is obtained by distinguishing three formats of the sorites argument and appraising them in the light of four fundamental considerations: (i) the appropriate notion of truth for the application of vague predicates to their borderline cases, (ii) a certain construal of borderline cases, (iii) a certain freedom of use of vague terms not enjoyed by non-Vague terms and (iv) the revocation of that freedom by deductive contexts.

states are to be understood in terms of their functional relationships to other mental states, not in terms of their material instantiation in any particular kind of hardware. But the argument that material instantiation is irrelevant to functional..

This target article presents a new computational theory of explanatory coherence that applies to the acceptance and rejection of scientific hypotheses as well as to reasoning in everyday life, The theory consists of seven principles that establish relations of local coherence between a hypothesis and other propositions. A hypothesis coheres with propositions that it explains, or that explain it, or that participate with it in explaining other propositions, or that offer analogous explanations. Propositions are incoherent with each other if they (...) are contradictory, Propositions that describe the results of observation have a degree of acceptability on their own. An explanatory hypothesis is acccpted if it coheres better overall than its competitors. The power of the seven principles is shown by their implementation in a connectionist program called ECHO, which treats hypothesis evaluation as a constraint satisfaction problem. Inputs about the explanatory relations are used to create a network of units representing propositions, while coherende and incoherence relations are encoded by excitatory and inbihitory links. ECHO provides an algorithm for smoothly integrating theory evaluation based on considerations of explanatory breadth, simplicity, and analogy. It has been applied to such important scientific cases as Lovoisier's argument for oxygen against the phlogiston theory and Darwin's argument for evolution against creationism, and also to cases of legal reasoning. The theory of explanatory coherence has implications for artificial intelligence, psychology, and philosophy. (shrink)

W.V. Quine has expressed a fairly conventional form of non-cognitivism in those of his writings that concern the status of moral judgments. For instance, in Quine (1981), he argues that ethics, as compared with science, is ‘methodologically infirm’. The reason is that while science is responsive to observation, and therefore ‘retains some title to a correspondence theory of truth’ (p. 63), ethics lacks such responsiveness. This in turn leads Quine to contrast moral judgments with judgments that make cognitive claims (i.e., (...) judgments that are true or false). In Quine (1986), he argues that ‘[m]oral judgments differ [...] from cognitive ones in their relation to observation’ (p. 664). (shrink)

A traditional objection to coherentism is that there may be incompatible though equally coherent sets of beliefs. The purpose of the paper is to assess this objection. It is argued that the better a belief "p" coheres with the system of a person, the less likely it is that the negation of the belief coheres equally well with someone else's system, or even that there is someone else who believes the negation of "p". The arguments are based on two plausible (...) assumptions about coherence, and some more controversial assumptions concerning meaning and interpretation. (shrink)

I modify and generalize Carnap’s notion of frameworks as a way of unpacking Goodman’s metaphor of “making worlds with symbols”. My frameworks provide, metaphorically, a way of making worlds out of symbols in as much as all our framework-bound access to the world is through frameworks that always stand to be improved in accuracy, precision, and usually both. Such improvement is characterized in pragmatist terms.

I argue that four-dimensionalism and the desire satisfaction account of well-being are incompatible. For every person whose desires are satisfied, there will be many shorter-lived individuals (‘person-stages’ or ‘subpersons’) who share the person’s desires but who do not exist long enough to see those desires satisfied; not only this, but in many cases their desires are frustrated so that the desires of the beings in whom they are embedded as proper temporal parts may be fulfilled. I call this the frustrating (...) problem for four-dimensionalism. In the first half of the paper I lay the groundwork for understanding the frustrating problem, and then in the second half, I will examine six possible responses to the frustrating problem on behalf of the four-dimensionalist, (i) the Parfit (1984) inspired claim that identity is not what matters, (ii) the personal pronoun revisionism of Noonan (2010), (iii) the indirect concern account of Hudson (2001), (iv) the sensible stages account of Lewis (1986), (v) a multiple-concepts account of desire satisfaction, and (vi) a No Desire View according to which subpersons have no mental states and thus no desires to frustrate. I argue that none of these solutions will help the four-dimensionalist; she does better to reject the desire satisfaction theory, while the defender of the desire satisfaction theory does better to reject four-dimensionalism. (shrink)

The idea of there being “no fact of the matter” (NFM) features centrally in Quine’s indeterminacy theses. Yet there has been little discussion of how exactly Quine understands this idea. In this paper I identify, develop and then critically evaluate Quine’s conception of NFM. In Sects. 3–4 I consider a handful of intuitive semantic and ontological conceptions of NFM and argue that none is workable from within Quine’s philosophy. I conclude that the failure of each of these proposals is due (...) to the immanent status of truth and existence for Quine. In Sect. 5 I then present Quine’s official conception of NFM. Briefly, Quine’s idea is that there is NFM between two theories of translation iff those theories are physically equivalent. I develop this idea in detail. Finally, I raise two independent problems for this conception of NFM. In Sect. 6 I argue that Quine’s definition is too strong: given what he means by NFM, his arguments for indeterminacy—even granting all their premises and internal reasoning—simply cannot support his claim that there is NFM regarding translation; instead they establish a strictly weaker conclusion. In Sect. 7 I argue that Quine’s conception of NFM is in significant tension with his thesis of physicalism, and that he must give up one or the other. (shrink)

This essay examines the syntax of names. It argues that names are a syntactically and not just semantically distinctive class of expressions. Its central claim is that names are a distinguished type of anaphoric device—devices of explicit co-reference. Finally it argues that appreciating the true syntactic distinctiveness of names is the key to resolving certain long-standing philosophical puzzles that have long been thought to be of a semantic nature.

The unification argument, usually regarded as the main argument for predicativism about proper names, has recently been attacked by Robin Jeshion. According to Jeshion, the unification argument is based on the assumption of the literality of predicative uses of proper names in statements such as “There is one Alfred in Princeton.” In such a use, a proper name ‘N’ is used predicatively to denote those, and only those, objects called N. As Jeshion argues, however, there are many other examples in (...) which a proper name ‘N’ is used predicatively to denote objects which are not called N. Based on such cases, Jeshion challenges the predicativist to provide a justification for assuming that the original predicative use of proper names, to which the predicativist appeals in the unification argument, is literal. My aim in this paper is to defend predicativism by arguing that the predicativist’s assumption is well motivated. To this end, I first present the unification argument for predicativism and Jeshion’s challenge to it. Then, I argue that the answer provided by Delia Graff Fara to Jeshion’s challenge is unsatisfactory. Finally, I meet Jeshion’s challenge by extending the phenomena highlighted in Jeshion’s examples to the referential uses of proper names. (shrink)

The main thesis of this paper is that it is not possible to determine the nature of epistemic justification apart from scientific psychological investigation. I call this view the strong thesis of methodological psychologism. Two sub-theses provide the primary support for this claim. The first sub-thesis is that no account of epistemic justification is correct which requires for the possession of at least one justified belief a psychological capacity which humans do not have. That is, the correct account of epistemic (...) justification must be psychologically realistic. The second sub-thesis is that it is not possible to determine whether an account of epistemic justification is psychologically realistic apart from scientific psychological investigation. After defending these subtheses, I point out some interesting consequences of the overall thesis which present a challenge to traditional epistemology. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract What is Conceptual Relativism? The Kantian Roots of Conceptual Relativism Epistemology or Metaphysics? Conceptual Relativism and Truth The Scheme and Content Relativized? Davidson Against the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme Empirical Sources: Conceptual Relativism in Linguistics and Psychology References.

This article develops a research position that allows cultural sociologists to compare morality across sociohistorical cases. In order to do so, the article suggests focusing analytic attention on actions that fulfill the following criteria: (a) actions that define the actor as a certain kind of socially recognized person, both within and across fields; (b) actions that actors experience—or that they expect others to perceive—as defining the actor both intersituationally and to a greater extent than other available definitions of self; and (...) (c) actions to which actors either have themselves, or expect others to have, a predictable emotional reaction. Such a position avoids both a realist moral sociology and descriptive-relativism, and provides sociologists with criteria for comparing moral action in different cases while staying attuned to social and historical specificity. (shrink)

The relationship between Rawls’s theory of justice and Quine’s philosophy constitute an almost entirely new topic of discussion. The analysis undertaken in this article aims to show that some fundamental epistemological traits of Rawls’s theory of justice may be causally explained by referring to Quine’s influence on him. Rawls’s assumptions, methods of theory-building and evaluation criteria are addressed and a close nexus between the methods of ethics and natural science is made explicit. In the light of the historical and epistemological (...) analysis presented in this article it may be argued that Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness satisfies scientific requirements of evidence and objectivity within the sphere of ethics to the extent it is constructed and justified in accordance to Quine’s epistemology. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present and analyze arguments provided for the Psychological Principle of Non-Contradiction which states that one cannot have, or cannot be described as having, contradictory beliefs. By differentiating two possible interpretations of PNC, descriptive and normative, and examining arguments provided for each of them separately I point out the flaws in reasoning in these arguments and difficulties with aligning PNC with the empirical data provided by research done in cognitive and clinical psychology. I claim (...) that PNC cannot be derived from any metaphysical stance regarding the mental phenomena and that having contradictory beliefs should be regarded as possible. Furthermore, I argue that interpreting a subject as having contradictory beliefs, and therefore abandoning PNC, can be more effective in explaining the phenomena of contradictory beliefs and irrational behaviour than solutions consistent with the PNC. (shrink)

We argue for a new mode of interpretation for attributed attitudes, what we call de translato interpretation. De translato interpretation assigns a meaning to an expression based on the interpretation given to that expression by the attitude subject rather than that standardly given by the attributor. We argue that this new mode of interpretation is distinct from but compatible with de dicto, de re and de qualitate interpretation. Formally, de translato interpretation is analyzed as introducing a modification in the language (...) used for interpretation, where the modification alters the attributor’s language in such a way as to more closely approximate the presumed language of a perspective holder. Attitude predicates are taken to introduce the perspective of their subject as a parameter of interpretation for the clause they embed. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore how bio-hybrid forms can be created and combined starting from organic forms. The thesis put forward is epistemological: the combinatorial practice of bionics, biomimetics, biorobotics, and all design strategies inspired by nature is not based on a kind of biomimetic inspiration, i. e., on a kind of imitation of nature, but on a practice of translation. To develop this thesis, I focus on the practices of contemporary biorobotics, first examining the practice of translating natural forms (...) into technical artefacts as developed by Raoul Heinrich Francé at the beginning of the 20th century, secondly, analysing the production of robots capable of replicating complex locomotion systems and, finally, investigating the interaction between robots and living organisms (fish). In the last part of the paper, I reflect on the philosophical payoff and broader conditions of possibility for this translational practice. I discuss when and to what extent a translation of biological forms into biotechnical ones is acceptable and point out the notion of form that underlies this practice. Moreover, I draw attention to the need to philosophically investigate what happens between different domains of knowledge – and especially between science and technology. This article is thus an invitation to philosophers to develop a philosophy in the interstices of knowledge production. (shrink)

What does it mean to trust the results of a computer simulation? This paper argues that trust in simulations should be grounded in empirical evidence, good engineering practice, and established theoretical principles. Without these constraints, computer simulation risks becoming little more than speculation. We argue against two prominent positions in the epistemology of computer simulation and defend a conservative view that emphasizes the difference between the norms governing scientific investigation and those governing ordinary epistemic practices.

It is argued that a number of important, and seemingly disparate, types of representation are species of a single relation, here called structural representation, that can be described in detail and studied in a way that is of considerable philosophical interest. A structural representation depends on the existence of a common structure between a representation and that which it represents, and it is important because it allows us to reason directly about the representation in order to draw conclusions about the (...) phenomenon that it depicts. The present goal is to give a general and precise account of structural representation, then to use that account to illuminate several problems of current philosophical interest — including some that do not initially seem to involve representation at all. In particular, it is argued that ontological reductions (like that of the natural numbers to sets), compositional accounts of semantics, several important sorts of mental representation, and (perhaps) possible worlds semantics for intensional logics are all species of structural representation and are fruitfully studied in the framework developed here. (shrink)

What do we learn when we find out that an argument is logically incorrect? If logically incorrect means the same as not logically correct, which in turn means not having a valid logical form, it seems that we do not learn anything too useful—an argument which is logically incorrect can still be conclusive. Thus, it seems that it makes sense to fix a stronger interpretation of the term under which a logically incorrect argument is guaranteed to be wrong. In this (...) paper, we show that pinpointing this stronger sense is much trickier than one would expect; but eventually we reach an explication of the notion of logical incorrectness which we find non-trivial and viable. (shrink)

On a widespread reading, the Carnap-Quine debate about ontology concerns the objectivity and non-triviality of ontological claims. I argue that this view mischaracterizes Carnap’s aims in “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology” : Carnap’s fundamental goal is to free up decisions about scientific language from constraints deriving from ontological doctrine. The contention, based on his internal/external distinction, that ontological claims are either meaningless or trivial was Carnap’s means to achieving this more fundamental goal. Setting the record straight on this point brings out (...) three important and often overlooked features of Carnap’s views on ontology. First, the target of Carnap’s critique in ESO is not Quine’s mature views on ontology, as laid out in “On What There Is”. Rather, Carnap is responding to arguments for nominalism that were given by Tarski, Goodman, and Quine in the 1940s. Second, a more general rejection of conservatism in theory choice is essential to Carnap’s aims and is implicit in his fundamental views on language. Third, even if it turns out to be tenable, the i/e distinction is not adequate for Carnap’s aim in ESO. Drawing on his basic conception of scientific language, I will suggest an alternative approach on his behalf. (shrink)

Consumers can have difficulty expressing their buying intentions on an explicit level. The most common explanation for this intention-action gap is that consumers have many cognitive biases that interfere with decision making. The current resource-rational approach to understanding human cognition, however, suggests that brain environment interactions lead consumers to minimize the expenditure of cognitive energy. This means that the consumer seeks as simple of a solution as possible for a problem requiring decision making. In addition, this resource-rational approach to decision (...) making emphasizes the role of the principle of Occam’s Razor, inductive inference, and Bayesian reasoning by illuminating the human-environment relationship. This paper introduces the Consumer Contextual Decision-Making Model (CCDMM). Based on the CCDMM, two hypothetical strategies of consumer decision making will be presented. First, the SIMilarity-Strategy (SIMS) is one in which most of a consumer’s decisions in a real-life context are based on prior beliefs about the role of a commodities specific to real-life situation being encountered. Because beliefs are based on previous experiences, consumers are already aware of the most likely consequences of their actions. At the same time, they do not waste time on developing contingencies for what, based on previous experience, is unlikely to happen. Second, the What-is-Out-there-in-the-World-Strategy (WOWS) is one in which prior beliefs do not work in a real-life situation, requiring consumers to update their beliefs. The principle argument being made is that most experimental consumer research describes decision making based on the WOWS, when participants cannot apply their previous knowledge and situation-based strategy to problems. The article analyses sensory and cognitive biases described by behavioral economists from a CCDMM perspective, followed by a description and explanation of the typical intention-action gap based on the model. Prior to a section dedicated to discussion, the neuroeconomic approach will be described along with the valuation network of the brain, which has evolved to solve problems that the human has previously encountered in an information-rich environment. The principles of brain functions will also be compared to CCDMM. Finally, different approaches and the future direction of consumer research from a contextual point of view will be presented. (shrink)

On the Genealogy of Universals: The Metaphysical Origins of Analytic Philosophy, by MacBrideFraser. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. viii + 263.

Metaethical realists disagree about the nature of normative properties. Naturalists think that they are ordinary natural properties: causally efficacious, a posteriori knowable, and usable in the best explanations of natural and social sciences. Non-naturalist realists, in contrast, argue that they are sui generis: causally inert, a priori knowable and not a part of the subject matter of sciences. It has been assumed so far that naturalists can explain causally how the normative predicates manage to refer to normative properties, whereas non-naturalists (...) are unable to provide equally satisfactory metasemantic explanations. This article first describes how the previous non-naturalist accounts of reference fail to tell us how the normative predicates could have come to refer to the non-natural properties rather than to the natural ones. I will then use the so-called qua-problem to show how the causal theories of reference of naturalists also fail to fix the reference of normative predicates to unique natural properties. Finally, I will suggest that, just as naturalists need to rely on the non-causal mechanism of reference magnetism to solve the previous problem, non-naturalists, too, can rely on the very same idea to respond to the pressing metasemantic challenges that they face concerning reference. (shrink)

SummarySurely, we think, in some cases it is determinate which rules we follow . But what in the world could determine a rule for us in any case? First 1 consider five common, perfectly natural, but utterly inadequate sorts of answer to this question. Then I consider an account which would avoid the usual inadequacies but would leave rules radically indeterminate, a position which is utterly counter‐intuitive. Thus painted into a corner, I then step out with a prima facie queer, (...) but adequate and ultimately not terribly counter‐intuitive, solution to the puzzle: a sort of picture‐theory of understanding rules . Finally 1 show that the picture‐theory undermines the sorts of anti‐realism which would, if they were valid, undermine the picture‐theory.RésuméNous pensons que, dans certains cas, les règies que nous suivons sont sûrement déterminées. Mais qu'est‐ce au monde qui pourrait déterminer pour nous une règie dans tous les cas? Je considère d'abord cinq réponses communes à cette question, réponses très naturelles, mais absolument inadéquates. Ensuite, j'examine une réponse qui serait plus adéquate, mais laisserait les règies radicalement indéterminées, ce qui est très contraire a l'intuition. Je propose alors une solution qui paraît au premier abord saugrenue, mais qui est adéquate et pas tellement contraire à l'intuition: une sorte de theorie des images pour comprendre les régies . Finalement, je montre que cette théorie des images désarme les types d'antiréalisme qui, s'ils étaient valables, s'opposeraient à cette théorie des images.ZusammenfassungWir denken, dass in einigen Fällen bestimmt ist, wetche Regeln wir befolgen . Was aber in der Welt könnte eine Regel in einem beliebigen Fall bestimmen? Ich betrachte zunächst fünf gewöhnliche durch‐aus natürliche, aber völlig inadäquate Arten von Antworten auf diese Frage. Dann betrachte ich eine Behandlung , die die üblichen Mängel vermeidet, die jedoch Regeln radikal unbestimmt lässt, was unserer Intuition zuwiderläuft. So in die Enge getrieben suche ich einen Ausweg in einer Lösung, die prima facie zwar befremdlich erscheinen mag, die aber adäquat ist und nicht stark gegen die Intuition verstösst: eine Art von Bildtheorie des Verstehens von Regeln . Schliesslich weise ich nach, dass die Bildtheorie die Arten von Antirealismus unterminiert, die die Bildtheorie zerstören würden, wenn sie güitig waren. (shrink)

According to a well-established tradition in the philosophy of language, we can understand what makes an arbitrary sound, gesture, or marking into a meaningful linguistic expression only by appealing to mental states, such as beliefs and intentions. In this paper, I explore the contrasting possibility of understanding the meaningfulness of linguistic expressions just in terms of observable linguistic behavior. Specifically, I explore the view that a type of sound becomes a meaningful linguistic expression within a group in virtue of the (...) production of that type of item becoming that group’s widespread, copied way of getting others to involve an object or relation in their activity. After discussing a preliminary version of the view, I develop it in response to some key concerns about whether it really does, as a matter of fact, eschew mental states, and about its adequacy as an account of linguistic meaning. (shrink)

Can scientific evidence prompt us to revise philosophical theories or folk theoretical accounts of phenomena of the mind? We will argue that it can—but only under the condition that they make a so-called ‘ontological commitment’ to something that is actually subject to empirical inquiry. In other words, scientific evidence pertaining to neuroanatomical structure or causal processes only has a refuting effect if philosophical theories and folk notions subscribe to either account. We will illustrate the importance of ‘ontological commitment’ with the (...) ‘neuroanatomical approach’ to amusement as proposed in a recent paper by Palencik :419–434, 2007). We will show that the scientific evidence presented in said neuroanatomical approach has no bearing on the conceptual issues, in that the philosophical theories and folk distinction that are criticized do not subscribe to any account of the underlying neuroanatomical structure or causal processes. Our suggestions in this paper are not limited to philosophical accounts of humor but apply to the relationship of philosophy, common sense and science in general. (shrink)