What is it to be mentally healthy? In the ongoing movement to promote mental health, to reduce stigma, and to establish parity between mental and physical health, there is a clear enthusiasm about this concept and a recognition of its value in human life. However, it is often unclear what mental health means in all these efforts and whether there is a single concept underlying them. Sometimes, the initiatives for the sake of mental health are aimed just at reducing mental (...) illness, thus implicitly identifying mental health with the absence of diagnosable psychiatric disease. More ambitiously, there are high-profile proposals to adopt a positive definition, identifying mental health with psychic or even overall well-being. We argue against both: a definition of mental health as mere absence of mental illness is too thin, too undemanding, and too closely linked to psychiatric value judgments, while the definition in terms of well-being is too demanding and potentially oppressive. As a compromise, we sketch out a middle position. On this view, mental health is a primary good, that is, the psychological preconditions of pursuing any conception of the good life, including well-being, without being identical to well-being. (shrink)

The study focused on the Digital Technology (DT) Competency of Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) in Ilocos Sur. This study will be beneficial for the upskilling of CPAs in Ilocos Sur and serve as a guide to development of competency-based curriculum for accounting students and intervention programs by accounting professional organizations. Using a validated survey instrument, the researcher considered 107 CPAs that responded. Total enumeration was used. The survey investigated the CPAs’ level of digital technology along five competency domains. Descriptive method (...) of research was utilized Their level of DT Competency is interpreted as “Proficient”. The study hints that they are not so far behind in terms of digital competency, and they have an enormous potential in relation to IT utilization, management, administration, and risk management. Reassessment of the BS Accountancy curriculum, encouraging CPAs to take advance studies and future research in this line is recommended. CPAs in Ilocos Sur can optimistically adapt to the ever-changing demands of the workplace. (shrink)

The study examines the relative merits of a noncompatibility and a restructuring explanation of the recurrent empirical finding that a prominent attribute looms larger in choices than in judgments. Pairs of equally attractive options were presented to 72 undergraduates who were assigned to six conditions in which they performed (1) only preference judgments or choices, (2) preference judgments or choices preceded by judgments of attractiveness of attribute levels, or (3) preference judgments or choices accompanied by think-aloud reports. The results replicated (...) the prominence efTect for choices, but a prominence effect was also found for preference judgments. In accordance with the restructuring explanation, the think-aloud protocols indicated that options were more often restructured in choices than in preference judgments. However, restructuring could not explain the prominence effect observed for preference judgments. A modified compatibility hypothesis is offered as an alternative explanation. (shrink)

The use of writing or journaling as a tool toward healing is becoming increasingly accepted in the vernacular of healing litanies. Reference books, personal narratives, and research on the effects of writing on healing psychological discomfort are abundant. Heal Yourself with Writing, written by screenwriter Catherine Ann Jones, and published in 2013, won a Nautilus Book Award for 2014. The following review reflects a book that is a well-thought journey through the steps of intentional or focused writing for the express (...) purpose of moving from living from beliefs and thoughts that do not serve healthy wholeness or fullness of life, into living more freely and more authentically. (shrink)

A violation of procedure invariance in preference measurement is that the predominant or prominent attribute looms larger in choice than in a matching task. In Experiment 1, this so-called prominence effect was demonstrated for choices between pairs of options, choices to accept single options, and preference ratings of single options. That is, in all these response modes the prominent attribute loomed larger than in matching. The results were replicated in Experiment 2, in which subjects chose between or rated their preference (...) for pairs of options which were matched to be equally attractive either in the same session or 1 week earlier. On the basis of these and previous results, it is argued that the prominence effect is a reliable phenomenon. However, none of several cognitive explanations which have been offered appears to be completely viable. (shrink)

When a prominent attribute looms larger in one response procedure than in another, a violation of procedure invariance occurs. A hypothesis based on compatibility between the structure of the input information and the required output was tested as an explanation of this phenomenon. It was also compared with other existing hypotheses in the field. The study had two aims: (1) to illustrate the prominence effect in a selection of preference tasks (choice, acceptance decisions, and preference ratings); (2) to demonstrate the (...) processing differences in a matching procedure versus the selected preference tasks. Hence, verbal protocols were collected in both a matching task and in subsequent preference tasks. Silent control conditions were also employed. The structure compatibility hypothesis was confirmed in that a prominence effect obtained in the preference tasks was accompanied by a lower degree of attention to the attribute levels in these tasks. Furthermore, as predicted from the structure compatibility hypothesis, it was found that fewer comparisons between attribute levels were performed in the preference tasks than in the matching task. It was therefore concluded that both these processing differences may explain the occurrence of the prominence effects. (shrink)

Several studies have shown that preference is not necessarily synonymous with choice. In particular, the most preferred object from a set of objects presented in a non—choice context is not necessarily chosen when the same objects are options in a choice situation (Lichtenstein & Slovic, 1971, 1973; Tversky, Sattah, & Slovic, 1988) . Our research on the choice—preference discrepancy replicates these findings and thus bears some resemblance to the study by Tversky, Sattah, and Slovic (1988). Two competing explanations are tested.

Metaethical constructivism aims to explain morality’s authority and relevance by basing it in agency, in a capacity of the creatures who are in fact morally bound. But constructivists have struggled to wring anything recognizably moral from an appropriately minimal conception of agency. Even if they could, basing our reasons in our individual agency seems to make other people reason-giving for us only indirectly. This paper argues for a constructivism based on a social conception of agency, on which our capacity to (...) recognize ourselves as having reasons ties us inescapably to others. It argues that mutual recognition is a pervasive feature of linguistic concepts, and builds this into a view called transformative expressivism. (shrink)

Suppose you have recently gained a disposition for recognizing a high-level kind property, like the property of being a wren. Wrens might look different to you now. According to the Phenomenal Contrast Argument, such cases of perceptual learning show that the contents of perception can include high-level kind properties such as the property of being a wren. I detail an alternative explanation for the different look of the wren: a shift in one’s attentional pattern onto other low-level (...) properties. Philosophers have alluded to this alternative before, but I provide a comprehensive account of the view, show how my account significantly differs from past claims, and offer a novel argument for the view. Finally, I show that my account puts us in a position to provide a new objection to the Phenomenal Contrast Argument. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the standard conception of Spinoza as a fellow-travelling mechanical philosopher and proto-scientific naturalist is misleading. It argues, first, that Spinoza’s account of the proper method for the study of nature presented in the Theological-Political Treatise (TTP) points away from the one commonly associated with the mechanical philosophy. Moreover, throughout his works Spinoza’s views on the very possibility of knowledge of nature are decidedly sceptical (as specified below). Third, in the seventeenth-century debates over proper methods in the (...) sciences, Spinoza sided with those that criticized the aspirations of those (the physico-mathematicians, Galileo, Huygens, Wallis, Wren, etc) who thought the application of mathematics to nature was the way to make progress. In particular, he offers grounds for doubting their confidence in the significance of measurement as well as their piece-meal methodology (see section 2). Along the way, this chapter offers a new interpretation of common notions in the context of treating Spinoza’s account of motion (see section 3). (shrink)

Animal-derived constituents are frequently used in anaesthesia and surgery, and patients are seldom informed of this. This is problematic for a growing minority of patients who may have religious or secular concerns about their use in their care. It is not currently common practice to inform patients about the use of animal-derived constituents, yet what little empirical data does exist indicates that many patients want the opportunity to give their informed consent. First, we review the nature and scale of the (...) problem by looking at the groups who may have concerns about the use of animal-derived constituents in their care. We then summarise some of the products used in anaesthesia and surgery that can contain such constituents, such as anaesthetic drugs, surgical implants and dressings. Finally, we explore the problem of animal-derived constituents and consent using Beauchamp and Childress’ four principles approach, examining issues of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence and justice. Disclosing the use of animal-derived constituents in anaesthesia and surgery is warranted under Beauchamp and Childress’ four principles approach to the problem. Although there exist systemic and practical challenges to implementing this in practice, the ethical case for doing so is strong. The Montgomery ruling presents additional legal reason for disclosure because it entails that patients must be made aware of risks associated with their treatment that they attach significance to. (shrink)

The philosophy of Francis Bacon was interpreted in various ways in the seventeenth century. In England, his utopian project and natural history became the basis for the projects of religious pacification, pedagogical reformation, and scientific cooperation of Hartlib, Comenius and Charleton. In the hands of Evelyn, Wilkins, and Wren, moreover, Bacon’s ideal of cooperative science engendered the birth of the Royal Society, and his natural history guided the experimental activities of Boyle and Hooke. In France and the Netherlands, attention (...) was paid to Bacon’s natural history especially within the circle of friends of Descartes. In the second half of the seventeenth century, though Bacon’s historical approach was gradually supplanted by mechanical-mathematical science in Europe, Baconianism still served as a source of arguments in the Dutch Cartesian context, as to his theory of error and as a source of criticisms to Aristotelianism. (shrink)

This article explores problems with several definitions of Originalism proposed by Justice Scalia in "Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts." It begins by looking at Justice Scalia's citation of a possible statement by Queen Anne that Justice Scalia claims in itself justifies Originalism. Queen Anne may have told Sir Christopher Wren that St. Paul's Cathedral was "awful, artificial, and amusing" at a time when those words meant "awe-inspiring, highly artistic, and thought-provoking." Conceding that one must understand how Queen (...) Anne meant these terms, this article shows how this example actually undermines Originalism when applied to on-going rules. It also explores inconsistencies and problems with several definitions of Originalism including Justice Scalia's arbitrary exclusion of technology from the constraints of "original meaning." It further disputes his claim that Originalism ". . .will narrow the range of acceptable judicial decision-making and acceptable argumentation [and that it] will curb -- even reverse -- the tendency of judges to imbue authoritative texts with their own policy preferences." This article maintains that Originalism has the opposite effect. -/- Keywords: originalism, original meaning, Scalia, interpretation, meaning. (shrink)

This is an introductory article on sociobiology, particularly its relationship to eugenics. Sociobiology developed in the 1960s as a field within evolutionary biology to explain human social traits and behaviours. Although sociobiology has few direct connections to eugenics, it shares eugenics’ optimistic enthusiasm for extending biological science into the human domain, often with reckless sensationalism. Sociobiology's critics have argued that sociobiology also propagates a kind of genetic determinism and represents the zealous misapplication of science beyond its proper reach that characterized (...) the eugenics movement. More recently, evolutionary psychology represents a sophistication of sociobiology that attends to the mind as the "missing link" between evolution and behaviour (Cosmides and Tooby 1992, Pinker 1997). (shrink)

What is the relationship between lying, belief, and knowledge? Prominent accounts of lying define it in terms of belief, namely telling someone something one believes to be false, often with the intent to deceive. This paper develops a novel account of lying by deriving evaluative dimensions of responsibility from the knowledge norm of assertion. Lies are best understood as special cases of vicious assertion; lying is the anti-paradigm of proper assertion. This enables an account of lying in terms of knowledge: (...) roughly, lying is telling someone something you know ain't so. (shrink)

What is the primary function of consciousness in the nervous system? The answer to this question remains enigmatic, not so much because of a lack of relevant data, but because of the lack of a conceptual framework with which to interpret the data. To this end, we have developed Passive Frame Theory, an internally coherent framework that, from an action-based perspective, synthesizes empirically supported hypotheses from diverse fields of investigation. The theory proposes that the primary function of consciousness is well-circumscribed, (...) serving the 'somatic nervous system[. For this system, consciousness serves as a frame that constrains and directs skeletal muscle output, thereby yielding adaptive behavior. The mechanism by which consciousness achieves this is more counterintuitive, passive, and “low level” than the kinds of functions that theorists have previously attributed to consciousness. Passive frame theory begins to illuminate (a) what consciousness contributes to nervous function, (b) how consciousness achieves this function, and (c) the neuroanatomical substrates of conscious processes. Our untraditional, action-based perspective focuses on olfaction instead of on vision and is 'descriptive' (describing the products of nature as they evolved to be) rather than 'normative' (construing processes in terms of how they should function). Passive frame theory begins to isolate the neuroanatomical, cognitive-mechanistic, and representational (e.g., conscious contents) processes associated with consciousness. (shrink)

Dominant views of personal identity in philosophy take some kind of psychological continuity or connectedness over time to be criterial for the identity of a person over time. Such views assign psychological states, particularly those necessary for narrative memory of some kind, special importance in thinking about the nature of persons. The extended mind thesis, which has generated much recent discussion in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, holds that a person’s psychological states can physically extend beyond that person’s (...) body. Since “person” is a term of both metaphysical and moral significance, and discussions of both extended minds and personal identity have often focused on memory, this article explores the relevance of extended cognition for the identity of persons with special attention to neuroethics and memory. (shrink)

Philosophical exploration of individualism and externalism in the cognitive sciences most recently has been focused on general evaluations of these two views (Adams & Aizawa 2008, Rupert 2008, Wilson 2004, Clark 2008). Here we return to broaden an earlier phase of the debate between individualists and externalists about cognition, one that considered in detail particular theories, such as those in developmental psychology (Patterson 1991) and the computational theory of vision (Burge 1986, Segal 1989). Music cognition is an area in the (...) cognitive sciences that has received little attention from philosophers, though it has relatively recently been thrown into the externalist spotlight (Cochrane 2008, Kruger 2014, Kersten forthcoming). Given that individualism can be thought of as a kind of paradigm for research on cognition, we provide a brief overview of the field of music cognition and individualistic tendencies within the field (sections 2 and 3) before turning to consider externalist alternatives to individualistic paradigms (section 4-5) and then arguing for a qualified form of externalism about music cognition (section 6). (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a new solution to the old problem of how best to understand the meaning of the word ‘logos’ in the extant writings of Heraclitus, especially in fragments DK B1, B2 and B50. On the view I defend, Heraclitus was neither using the word in a perfectly ordinary way in these fragments, as some have maintained, nor denoting by it some kind of general principle or law governing change in the cosmos, as many have claimed. Rather, (...) I argue, Heraclitus deliberately traded on the ordinary use of the word in his time (to refer to a written or spoken presentation of things as ‘thus and so’) to denote the world’s constant presentation of itself as ‘thus and so’ to all of us in our experience – a kind of cosmic self-revelation. I show how this captures the sense in which ‘the logos’ is said to be ‘common’ (xunos) and to be the kind of thing most people fail to comprehend even before hearing Heraclitus’ own account, all without detaching Heraclitus’ use of the word from its ordinary contemporary meaning. This interpretation suggests Heraclitus was a thinker more centrally concerned with human (mis)understanding than with speculative cosmology. (shrink)

In this chapter I articulate the threat that time travel to the past allegedly poses to the free will of the time traveler, and I argue that on the traditional way of thinking about free will, the incompatibilist about time travel and free will wins the day. However, a residual worry about the incompatibilist view points the way toward a novel way of thinking about free will, one that I tentatively explore toward the end of the chapter.

A style of argument that calls into question our freedom (in the sense that involves freedom to do otherwise) has been around for millennia; it can be traced back to Origen. The argument-form makes use of the crucial idea that the past is over-and-done-with and thus fixed; we cannot now do anything about the distant past (or, for that matter, the recent past)—it is now too late. Peter van Inwagen has presented this argument (what he calls the Consequence Argument) in (...) perhaps its clearest and most forceful way, but debate over the argument has arguably reached a stalemate. -/- Recently, however, Wes Holliday has attempted to break this seeming stalemate by presenting a new argument for the Principle of the Fixity of the Past. Holliday’s argument is subtle and ingenious, and worthy of serious consideration, especially given the promise it holds for genuinely advancing this old debate. In what follows, however, we argue that despite its considerable ingenuity, Holliday’s argument fails to convince, and the stalemate appears to remain. (shrink)

In the intersection between eugenics past and present, disability has never been far beneath the surface. Perceived and ascribed disabilities of body and mind were one of the core sets of eugenics traits that provided the basis for institutionalized and sterilization on eugenic grounds for the first 75 years of the 20th-century. Since that time, the eugenic preoccupation with the character of future generations has seeped into what have become everyday practices in the realm of reproductive choice. As Marsha Saxton (...) (2000) and Adrienne Asch (2000, 2003) have forcefully argued, the use of prenatal screening technologies to facilitate the selective abortion of fetuses with features that signify disabling traits—the paradigm here being trisomy 21 in a fetus indicating Down Syndrome in the child—express a negative view of such disabilities sufficient to warrant terminating an otherwise wanted pregnancy. The eliminative structure of what Rosemary Garland Thompson (2012) has called eugenic logic persists in contemporary practices governing reproductive choice, social inclusion, and democratic participation and their relationship to disability. The tie between eugenics and contemporary disability studies suggests that eugenics and reflection on its history can also play a more positive role in disability politics. After focusing on eugenics in the first half of the paper, we will shift in the second half of the paper to eugenic resonances in contemporary thought and practice, concluding with some thoughts about ongoing practices of silencing and the very idea of eradicating disability. (shrink)

In book 9 of Plato's Republic, Socrates describes the nature and origins of the ‘tyrannical man’, whose soul is said to be ‘like’ a tyrannical city. In this paper, I examine the nature of the ‘government’ that exists within the tyrannical man's soul. I begin by demonstrating the inadequacy of three potentially attractive views sometimes found in the literature on Plato: the view that the tyrannical man's soul is ruled by his ‘lawless’ unnecessary appetites, the view that it is ruled (...) by sexual desire, and the view that it is ruled by a lust for power. I then present my own account. On the view I defend, the tyrannical man's soul is to be understood as ruled by a single, persistent, powerful desire for bodily pleasure: as much as he can get, and however he can get it. Finally, I show how understanding the tyrannical man's soul in the way I recommend helps resolve some commonly expressed concerns about this part of the Republic. I suggest, on this basis, that Plato's procedure in constructing his catalogue o.. (shrink)

Analytic philosophers have a tendency to forget that they are human beings, and one of the reasons that P. F. Strawson’s 1962 essay, “Freedom and Resentment”, has been so influential is that it promises to bring discussions of moral responsibility back down to earth. Strawson encouraged us to “keep before our minds...what it is actually like to be involved in ordinary interpersonal relationships”, which is, after all, the context in which questions about responsibility arise in the first place. In this (...) essay I explore what we can learn about ordinary interpersonal relationships from three works of literature – Shakespeare’s King Lear, Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair. My intention is to try to heed Strawson’s advice without imposing upon the data any particular theoretical agenda, and my hope is that the data collected will prove useful for future theorizing about responsibility. (shrink)

This open-access editorial discusses confronting silences in different disciplinary contexts, such as science and technology studies, cultural anthropology, and philosophy. It has a focus on race and concludes with thoughts about Indigenous expertise, the Australian referendum on the Indigenous Voice, to parliament, and racism.

Oppression is easily recognized. That is, at least, when oppression results from overt, consciously professed racism, for example, in which violence, explicit exclusion from economic opportunities, denial of adequate legal access, and open discrimination perpetuate the subjugation of a group of people. There are relatively clear legal remedies to such oppression. But this is not the case with covert oppression where the psychological harms and resulting legal and economic exclusion are every bit as real, but caused by concealed mechanisms subtly (...) and systematically employed. In many cases, those with power and privilege use cultural stereotypes in order to sustain an unjust status quo. This is so even if the biases are implicit, automatic, and contrary to the consciously professed beliefs of the stereotyper. Furthermore, since many of these biases are not consciously reasoned into one's system of beliefs, and since they are notoriously difficult to bring to consciousness and dislodge via direct, logical confrontation, some other creative means of resistance is needed. I argue that an indirect and imaginative route through subversive humor offers a means to raise consciousness about covert oppression and the mechanisms underlying it, reveal the errors of those with power who complacently sustain systematic oppression, and even open those people up to changing their minds. Subversive humor confronts serious matters, but in a playful manner that fosters creative and critical thinking, and cultivates a desire and skill for recognizing incongruities between our professed ideals and a reality that does not meet those standards. Successful subversive wits create fictional scenarios that highlight such moral incongruities, but, like philosophical thought experiments, they reveal a moral truth that also holds in the real world. Such humor offers opportunities for "border crossing" where the audience is encouraged to see from the perspectives of marginalized people who, because they inhabit ambiguous spaces in between the dominant and subordinate spheres, are in an epistemically privileged position with respect to matters of oppression. Subversive humorists open their audiences to the lived experiences of others, uncover the absurdities of otherwise covert oppression, and appeal to our desire to be truthful and just. (shrink)

Sumantra Ghoshal’s condemnation of “bad management theories” that were “destroying good management practices” has not lost any of its salience, after a decade. Management theories anchored in agency theory (and neo-classical economics generally) continue to abet the financialization of society and undermine the functioning of business. An alternative approach (drawn from a more classic institutional, new ecological, and refocused ethical approaches) is reviewed.

In this encyclopedia entry I sketch the way contemporary theorists understand moral responsibility -- its varieties, its requirements, and its puzzles.

Art museums are built to elicit a wide variety of feelings, emotions, and moods from their visitors. While these effects are primarily achieved through the artworks on display, museums commonly deploy numerous other affect-inducing resources as well, including architectural solutions, audio guides, lighting fixtures, and informational texts. Art museums can thus be regarded as spaces that are designed to influence affective experiencing through multiple structures and mechanisms. At face value, this may seem like a somewhat self-evident and trivial statement to (...) make. However, in this article, I argue that niche construction theory enables us to make several illuminating observations about the ways in which art museums are engineered to influence our feelings. To expound on this claim, I single out for discussion the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, which for its entire lifespan (1939–52)—and prior to its evolution into the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum—was expressly organized to kindle in its visitors a special, spiritual form of aesthetic experience: a liberating feeling of cosmic rhythm and order, no less. -/- The argument will proceed as follows: In Part 1, I introduce the basics of niche construction theory and specify the sense in which I apply it to museums and aesthetic affective experiencing. In Part 2, I outline the origins and ethos of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, after which I pin down the type of affective experience it fostered by drawing from visitors’ self-reported reactions to the artworks on display. Then, in Part 3, I use niche construction theory to explain how the Museum consciously fashioned itself, by means of various mutually supportive resources and technologies, into a fertile setting for the specified feelings. Finally, in Part 4, I extend beyond the discussed case to assess the implications of niche construction theory for a broader understanding of how art museums make us feel. In other words, by tracing the early steps of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting towards the present-day Guggenheim, I call attention to the general variation in affective niches as regards their structure, technologies, and affective aims. Overall, the article elucidates the functioning of art museums as affective niches and furthers the conceptual development of niche construction theory in aesthetics. (shrink)

Advances in forensic techniques have expanded the temporal horizon of criminal investigations, facilitating investigation of historic crimes that would previously have been considered unsolvable. Public enthusiasm for pursuing historic crimes is exemplified by recent high-profile trials of celebrities accused of historic sexual offences. These circumstances give new urgency to the question of how we should decide which historic offences to investigate. A satisfactory answer must take into account the ways in which the passage of time can erode the benefits of (...) criminal investigation, the costs associated with investigating old crimes, and the need to prioritize investigations in the face of limited police resources. This article emphasizes the first of these factors. It begins by considering the moral goals of a criminal justice system and the contribution of criminal investigations to the achievement of these goals, distinguishing between contributions that depend on further steps in the criminal justice process, such as prosecution and punishment, and contributions that can have value independently of these further steps. Using this important distinction, the article then examines a range of factors that relate the passage of time to criminal justice goals, including the seriousness of the crime; deterioration of evidence; death of the offender, victim and others affected by the crime; and diminished psychological connectedness between those affected by the crime and their current selves. While the range and non-uniformity of relevant factors preclude a simple answer to the question of when historic crimes should be investigated and call instead for case-by-case assessment, we find that the analysis does support some general conclusions that can guide such an assessment. (shrink)

So-called “ugly laws” were mostly municipal statutes in the United States that outlawed the appearance in public of people who were, in the words of one of these laws, “diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object” (Chicago City Code 1881). Although the moniker “ugly laws” was coined to refer collectively to such ordinances only in 1975 (Burgdorf and Burgdorf 1975), it has become the primary way to refer to such laws, (...) which targeted the overlapping categories of the poor, the homeless, vagrants, and those with visible disabilities. Enacted and actively enforced between the American Civil War (1867) and World War I (1918), such laws and their enforcement can tell us much about the very sorts of people who were also, a generation later, subject to explicitly eugenic laws, such as sterilization legislation. And like eugenic laws and policies, such laws continue to affect the lives of people with disabilities to this day (Schweik 2011). (shrink)

Hume and Quine argue that human beings do not have access to general knowledge, that is, to general truths . The arguments of these two philosophers are premised on what Jaakko Hintikka has called the atomistic postulate. In the present work, it is shown that Hume and Quine in fact sanction an extreme version of this postulate, according to which even items of particular knowledge are not directly accessible in so far as they are relational. For according to their fully (...) realized systems, human beings do not initially perceive any relations, or similar epistemological elements that can associate or combine terms on which a relational or general knowledge claim may be based. Nor, likewise, do human beings perceive the relations or the associations themselves as separate entities. ;In Chapters 1 and 2, respectively, it is shown precisely why Hume and Quine deny that human beings initially perceive either such associative elements or associations in general. Concomitantly, it is made clear why Hume's and Quine's respective epistemologies preclude human beings from initially apprehending not only general knowledge, but particular relational knowledge as well. But this is not to say that Hume and Quine do not think we can eventually acquire such associative elements and correspondingly, knowledge. Rather, Hume and Quine do provide an account of knowledge, but one that holds all relational and connective elements to be constructed by the human mind. In Hume's case, they are constructed by the imagination. In Quine's case, we are never told quite how this construction occurs, although the evidence suggests that Quine implicitly relies on a faculty similar to Hume's imagination. ;In the final chapter of this thesis, it is argued that both Hume and Quine must be read as philosophers who justify knowledge by reducing its possibility to a psychological faculty of construction, as well as to a few concepts of intuitively grasped relations. By way of conclusion, it is shown that this makes Quine's naturalism the psychological heir to Carnap's Aufbau. (shrink)

Phenomenally strong artworks have the potential to anchor us in reality and to cultivate our perception. For the most part, we barely notice the world around us, as we are too often elsewhere, texting, coordinating schedules, planning ahead, navigating what needs to be done. This is the level of our age that shapes the ways we encounter things and others. In such a world it is no wonder we no longer trust our senses. But as feminists have long argued, thinking (...) grounded in embodied experience can be more open to difference; such embodied thinking helps us to resist the colonization of a singular, only seemingly neutral, perspective that closes down living potentialities. (shrink)

The spread of misinformation and fake news raises important problems for our society and for our democracy. From the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol to vaccine hesitancy, from suppressing voter turnout to peddling conspiracy theories, we know that these problems are real and need to be taken seriously. While misinformation is not a new problem for democracy, it can spread more quickly and easily because of new media’s design and popularity. Given these problems, it is encouraging that some (...) technology companies are taking steps to reduce the spread of misinformation and fake news on the platforms they manage. Despite this seemingly positive development, some scholars have criticized some interventions designed to combat the spread of misinformation and fake news as paternalistic. For example, a 2019 Facebook intervention called Click-Gap aimed to reduce the amount of low-quality content (including fake news and misinformation) that users see on their NewsFeed. Click-Gap has been criticized as an instance of epistemic paternalism because it was adopted (1) with the goal of improving the epistemic status of its users and (2) irrespective of what the company believed the wishes of its users to be. If interventions like Click-Gap are problematic because paternalistic, those of us interested in the ethics of technology would face a dilemma—either endorse technology companies treating their users paternalistically or endorse their failing to act to combat the spread of misinformation and fake news on their platforms. Both options seem to me to be problematic. While paternalism may sometimes be permissible, I think we should be very hesitant to endorse a paternalistic relationship between technology companies and their users. The relationship does not seem to bear the right sort of structure to one in which paternalism might be appropriate, if it ever is. The second option seems, if anything worse: surely technology companies should not stand by and change nothing about their platforms despite the spread of misinformation and fake news in those spaces. In this paper, I argue that Click-Gap and interventions like it are not paternalistic, contrary to the conclusion of other scholars. Further, I will argue that the focus on paternalism itself is actually a red herring here. While not just any intervention or strategy that purports to reduce fake news and misinformation is permissible, we should want technology companies to take user well-being seriously and be able to take that well-being as a direct reason for action. Their doing so is not paternalistic nor even morally problematic, and it should not be criticized as such. (shrink)

Today marks the 7th anniversary of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Social Research (ISR), at Phenikaa University. ISR has for seven years now the place where the co-founders of this portal have been working and producing publications. A special event occurs now as the Current Conservation magazine publishes a new writing piece by our member, Dr Minh-Hoang Nguyen.

In ‘Excusing Mistakes of Law’, Gideon Yaffe sets out to ‘vindicate’ the claim ‘that mistakes of law never excuse’ by ‘identifying the truth that is groped for but not grasped by those who assert that ignorance of law is no excuse’. Yaffe does not offer a defence of the claim that mistakes of law never excuse. That claim, Yaffe argues, is false. Yaffe’s article is, rather, an effort to assess what plausible thought might be behind the idea that mistakes of (...) law often should not excuse. (Yaffe is interested in more than just the descriptive claim that in Anglo-American legal jurisdictions mistakes of law routinely do not, in fact, excuse.) More particularly, Yaffe is interested in what plausible normative justification there might be for this asymmetric pattern: -/- Asymmetry: False beliefs about non-legal facts often excuse, but false beliefs about the law rarely excuse. -/- Yaffe offers a complex argument in support of Asymmetry. This paper is organised around my reconstruction of Yaffe’s argument. I argue that Yaffe’s argument does not succeed, but that his argument provides a template for an argument that could succeed. (shrink)

I argue that the overt subjugation in the system of American slavery and its subsequent effects offer a case study for an existentialist analysis of freedom, oppression and humor. Concentrating on the writings and experiences of Frederick Douglass and the existentialists Simone De Beauvoir and Lewis Gordon, I investigate how the concepts of “spirit of seriousness”, “mystification”, and an existentialist reading of “double consciousness” for example, can elucidate the forms of explicit and concealed oppression. I then make the case that (...) subversive humor is an effective means to bring to consciousness the inconsistencies and incongruities of the serious oppressors. I also illustrate how humor can act as a bulwark against the rise and persistence of oppression by (non-violently) attacking the absolutist stance on human nature maintained through the use of dominating and “authoritative” language and action. (shrink)

In a landmark legal case in 1996, eugenics survivor Leilani Muir successfully sued the province of Alberta for wrongful confinement and sterilization. The legal finding implied that Ms. Muir should never have been institutionalized at the Provincial Training School of Alberta as a “moron” and sterilized under the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta. The trial itself revealed many unsettling features of the province’s practice of eugenics, raising questions about how a seemingly large number of people, like Ms. Muir, who were (...) not mentally defective, could have been wrongfully confined at an institution for the feeble-minded, and subsequently sterilized on eugenic grounds. Employing a three-agent model of wrongful accusation and conceiving of eugenics as wrongful more generally may help in understanding the operation of eugenic practices, such as institutionalization and sterilization, both in Western Canada and elsewhere. Eugenic practice involves a form of wrongful accusation that marks a significant departure from eugenic ideology. (shrink)

It is not a particularly hard thing to want or seek explanations. In fact, explanations seem to be a large and natural part of our cognitive lives. Children ask why and how questions very early in development and seem genuinely to want some sort of answer, despite our often being poorly equipped to provide them at the appropriate level of sophistication and detail. We seek and receive explanations in every sphere of our adult lives, whether it be to understand why (...) a friendship has foundered, why a car will not start, or why ice expands when it freezes. Moreover, correctly or incorrectly, most of the time we think we know when we have or have not received a good explanation. There is a sense both that a given, successful explanation satisfies a cognitive need, and that a questionable or dubious explanation does not. There are also compelling intuitions about what make good explanations in terms of their form, that is, a sense of when they are structured correctly. (shrink)

This entry investigates the connections between neo-populism and neo-conspiracism in the USA. One central thread is the rhetoric of purity that fosters rigid dichotomies of thought about identities, contributing to both populism and conspiracism, eliciting a neologism: conspirapopulism.

The relationship of eugenics to science is intricate and many-layered, starting with Sir Francis Galton’s original definition of eugenics as “the science of improving stock”. Eugenics was originally conceived of not only as a science by many of its proponents, but as a new, meliorative science emerging from findings of a range of nascent sciences, including anthropology and criminology in the late 19th-century, and genetics and psychiatry in the early 20th-century. Although during the years between the two World Wars many (...) central claims made by eugenicists were critiqued by scientists in these disciplines, in more recent years forms of eugenics (e.g., liberal eugenics”) have been defended as an inevitable outcome of biotechnologies and respect for autonomous choice. Understanding the shifting and varied roles that science has played in eugenics requires an appreciation of the ways in which science and values are intertwined. (shrink)

Both liberals and feminists have long criticized the paternalistic approach to prostitution found in most jurisdictions in the U.S. In his recent book Prostitution and Liberalism, Peter de Marneffe defends just such an intervention, arguing that the demonstrated harmfulness of a life of prostitution justifies paternalistic policies aimed at reducing the number of women who are involved in it. Although de Marneffe does not endorse the prohibitionist approach typical in the U.S., he argues that the best reasons for alternative approaches (...) to the practice (including some forms of regulated legalization) are necessarily paternalistic. In my paper, I question de Marneffe’s contention that the strongest reasons for state intervention with regard to prostitution are paternalistic in nature. I argue that reasonable state action toward prostitution is best understood not as a paternalistic intervention to remedy some moral or epistemological failure on the part of prostitutes, but rather as an attempt to advance the interests of vulnerable parties more generally concerning what they reasonably desire but could not otherwise ensure. I further argue that such an approach might favor abolitionist over regulatory policies, depending upon how the vulnerable class is defined. (shrink)

Respect for victims requires that we have social systems for punishing and condemning (reproving) serious crimes. But, the conditions of social marginalization and political subordination of the communities from which an overwhelming number of prisoners in the United States come place serious barriers in the face of effective reprobation. Mass incarceration makes this problem worse by disrupting and disrespecting entire communities. While humanities education in the prisons is far from a total solution, it is one way to make reprobation meaningful, (...) so long as the prison classroom is a place where the educators’ values are also put at risk. (shrink)

Barbara Herman's account of rules of moral salience goes far in explaining how Kantian moral theory can integrate historically emergent normative criticisms such as that offered by feminists. The ethical motives that initially lead historical agents to expand our moral categories, however, are often at odds with Kant's (and Herman's) theory of moral motivations. I argue that Hegel offers a more accurate account of ethical motivation under oppressive conditions.

This paper will consider ethical issues arising from medical tort litigation. I will argue that deep changes are required to ensure fairness in litigation and in order to hold morally responsible those corporations that take unnecessary risks with consumers’ lives.

The results are interpreted in terms of a deficit in initial rule learning and subsequent generalization of these rules to new stimuli. Negative feedback is adequately processed at a neural level but this information is not used to improve behaviour on subsequent trials. As learning is degraded, the process of error detection at the moment of the actual response is diminished. Therefore, the current study demonstrates that disturbed error-monitoring processes play a central role in the often reported learning deficits in (...) individuals with PP. (shrink)